| Military responds to reports of shooting at Pearl Harbor Posted: 04 Dec 2019 05:22 PM PST ![Military responds to reports of shooting at Pearl Harbor]( "Military responds to reports of shooting at Pearl Harbor") The U.S. military says security forces are responding to reports of a shooting at a naval shipyard at Pearl Harbor, one of the Navy's major installations. Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam tweeted that there's an ongoing security incident at Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard that began around 2:30 p.m. Wednesday. The gates to the base are closed, and at least some parts of Pearl Harbor are locked down.
|
| US mulling 14,000 more troops for Mideast: report Posted: 04 Dec 2019 03:54 PM PST  The United States is weighing sending up to 14,000 more troops to the Middle East in the face of a perceived threat from Iran, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday. The mulled deployment would include "dozens" more ships and double the number of troops added to the US force in the region since the beginning of this year, the Journal said, citing unnamed US officials. It said President Donald Trump could make a decision on the troop boost as early as this month.
|
| Europeans rap Iran for working on nuclear-capable missiles Posted: 04 Dec 2019 03:10 PM PST ![Europeans rap Iran for working on nuclear-capable missiles]( "Europeans rap Iran for working on nuclear-capable missiles") France, Germany and the United Kingdom say "Iran's developments of nuclear-capable ballistic missiles" go against a U.N. Security Council resolution calling on Tehran not to undertake any activity related to such missiles. Ambassadors from the three European nations urged U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in a letter circulated Wednesday to inform the council in his next report that Iran's ballistic missile activity is "inconsistent" with the call in a council resolution endorsing the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran.
|
| AP FACT CHECK: Trump suddenly loses interest in stock market Posted: 04 Dec 2019 02:42 PM PST  President Donald Trump offered a faulty take on the Constitution's grounds for impeachment Wednesday as he wrapped up a NATO summit marked by his misstatements on several fronts. Among them, he claimed that he pays no attention to the stock market despite plentiful evidence that he treats that indicator as the pulse of his presidency. TRUMP, on French President Emmanuel Macron's assertion that NATO is suffering "brain death": "He's taken back his comments very much so on NATO." — remarks Wednesday with Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte.
|
| George Zimmerman Sues Trayvon Martin’s Family Posted: 04 Dec 2019 02:30 PM PST  George Zimmerman, the Florida man who shot and killed African-American teenager Trayvon Martin, is suing Martin's family, the lawyer who represented them, and other people associated with the murder case. Zimmerman is being represented by a right-wing lawyer who supported the anti-Obama "birther" movement, and the claims in the lawsuit stem from a documentary by a fringe filmmaker who traffics in conspiracy theories. Zimmerman fatally shot Martin in a 2012 case that sparked a national debate over racial profiling and gun laws. Martin, 17, was unarmed when Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer, reported him as "suspicious" as he walked through a gated community where Martin was visiting family in Sanford, Florida. Zimmerman shot and killed Martin, claiming he acted in self-defense. He was later acquitted of murder and manslaughter charges. Now he's suing Martin's family and associates for $100 million, based on claims from a discredited documentarian.The lawsuit targets Martin's mother, father, various people associated with Martin and his case, the state of Florida, the Martin family's lawyer Benjamin Crump, and HarperCollins Publishers, which released Crump's book on the killing of minorities this year. The suit claims one of the witnesses against Zimmerman misrepresented herself—with Crump and the Martin family's knowledge.Zimmerman is being represented by Larry Klayman, an attorney described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as "a professional gadfly notorious for suing everyone from Iran's Supreme Leader to his own mother." While accusing President Barack Obama of secretly being Muslim in 2013, Klayman called for a "second American nonviolent revolution" to get Obama to "leave town, put the Koran down [...] and to figuratively come out with his hands up." A "birther" who claimed Obama faked his U.S. birth certificate, Klayman has also claimed the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing was ordered by Saddam Hussein. Klayman is a founder of the conservative group Judicial Watch, which has repeatedly sued the Clintons. This summer, a D.C. legal ethics panel recommended barring Klayman from practicing law for 33 months over a complaint by a former client who accused Klayman of exploiting her financially when she refused his advances. Klayman said he planned to appeal and claimed the hearing was "politicized." The panel told The Daily Beast the appeal was "ongoing."In a statement to The Daily Beast, Klayman said, "George Zimmerman seeks justice not just for himself, but for all of those others victimized by dishonest prosecutors who seek convictions to further their political and other unethical agendas to advance their careers. He also seeks justice against those who would divide the nation by pitting the races against each other for 'fun and profit,' including the Martin family attorney Benjamin Crump and his friend Al Sharpton." (Sharpton is not a defendant in the case.)In a statement on behalf of himself and Martin's family, Crump blasted Zimmerman."This plaintiff continues to display a callous disregard for everyone but himself, revictimizing individuals whose lives were shattered by his own misguided actions. He would have us believe that he is the innocent victim of a deep conspiracy, despite the complete lack of any credible evidence to support his outlandish claims. This tale defies all logic, and it's time to close the door on these baseless imaginings," Crump said Wednesday.Those alleged "baseless imaginings" stem from a new documentary by a longtime conservative conspiracy theorist."The facts pled in this Complaint, which set forth the injury suffered by Plaintiff, were only recently discovered by Plaintiff Zimmerman on or about September 16, 2019 through the publication of the book and film by Hollywood director Joel Gilbert, both entitled The Trayvon Hoax: Unmasking the Witness Fraud the Divided America," the lawsuit reads. (Klayman's announcement of the lawsuit also advertised a screening of the film.)Gilbert is a repeat Infowars guest who has peddled a number of right-wing conspiracy theories. In 2012, he made a movie claiming President Barack Obama was actually the secret son of labor leader Frank Marshall Davis, and that Obama had been raised from birth to lead a communist revolution. (Gilbert accounted for the two men's lack of physical similarities by claiming Obama had plastic surgery to hide his link to Davis.)Gilbert also pushed a hoax that claimed Obama wore a ring inscribed with a declaration of Islamic faith, and that Obama's mother posed naked for fetish magazines (both claims were debunked). During the 2016 presidential election, Gilbert produced a film falsely accusing Bill Clinton of fathering an illegitimate child (the man in question took a DNA test decades ago that indicated Clinton was not the father). Gilbert also designed a pro-Trump Times Square billboard, paid for by Roger Stone's super-PAC. He previously marketed other conspiracy films, including one suggesting Paul McCartney is secretly dead. The film was later reclassified as a mockumentary.Gilbert claimed to have mailed millions of copies of his anti-Obama documentary to swing state voters in 2012, raising questions about his financial backing. The Federal Election Commission mulled legal action against Gilbert that would have required him to disclose his funding, but the agency's general counsel ruled that the videos counted as a media action, not an independent political expenditure.Zimmerman has previously tried to capitalize on his fame from the Martin shooting. In 2017, he advertised a "celebrity boxing match" against rapper DMX. The fight was later cancelled. Later that year he likened Martin to a "dog." He also made $138,900 auctioning the gun he used to kill Martin.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
|
| Boris Johnson Promises Brexit, a Budget, and New Laws in 100 Days Posted: 04 Dec 2019 02:30 PM PST ![Boris Johnson Promises Brexit, a Budget, and New Laws in 100 Days]( "Boris Johnson Promises Brexit, a Budget, and New Laws in 100 Days") (Bloomberg) -- Sign up to our Brexit Bulletin, follow us @Brexit and subscribe to our podcast.U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson pledged to deliver Brexit and a budget within 100 days of winning the Dec. 12 election as he unveiled a list of policies his Conservative Party would roll out in the early days of a new administration.Other early goals include a defense review, more funding for schools, and the introduction to Parliament of legislation on immigration. The Tories sought to contrast their agenda for government with the "gridlock and uncertainty" that would result from a hung Parliament -- which the party described in a statement as "a very real possibility.""In just seven days time the British people will have to choose between a working majority government or yet another gridlocked hung Parliament," Johnson said in a statement. "If there is a Conservative majority next week, we will get Brexit done by the end of January. 2020 will then be the year we finally put behind us the arguments and uncertainty over Brexit. We will get Parliament working."With a week to go until the vote, the Tories' lead in the polls has been narrowing, though the ruling party still looks on course to win a majority. A Johnson victory would make Brexit at the end of January a near certainty, triggering the next -- and more complicated phase of negotiations to hammer out a new trading relationship with the European Union -- something the premier has said he can do by the end of 2020.'Years to Come'Labour issued a statement pointing back to nearly 3,500 "days of failure" under the Tories, saying more of the same won't work. The Liberal Democrats called Johnson's promises "pure fantasy," saying a Tory government would remain consumed by Brexit "for years to come."Johnson's list of promises also includedTougher sentences for terroristsStarting cross-party talks to devise a strategy for social careIncreasing the fees migrants must pay to use the National Health ServiceLegislation to promote gigabit-capable broadband across the countryA law to prevent "vexatious claims" against armed forces veteransEstablishing new regimes to govern trade, fishing and agriculture after Brexit"This is pure fantasy: a Tory government would remain completely consumed by Brexit not just for the next 100 days, but for years to come," the Liberal Democrats' finance spokesman, Ed Davey, said in a statement. "We must prevent Johnson getting a blank check to crash Britain out of the EU by the end of 2020."'Work Across Parties'Liberal Democrat Leader Jo Swinson earlier gave a BBC interview in which she conceded she wasn't likely to emerge from next week's vote as prime minister, having started the campaign saying it was possible. "That's not the most likely scenario," she said. While she repeated her position that she wouldn't help Labour Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn come to power, she suggested she could countenance her party supporting either the Tories or Labour under a different leader, with the goal of stopping Brexit in a second referendum."If Boris Johnson, Jeremy Corbyn don't win a majority at this election, then there's no guarantee that they're still going to be the ones that are leading their parties a week afterwards," she said when asked if she'd be prepared to support Corbyn -- or abstain -- in key votes in order to secure a plebiscite. "Liberal Democrats will work to stop Brexit, we will support legislation that puts in place a people's vote, and we will work across parties."To contact the reporter on this story: Alex Morales in London at amorales2@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Tim Ross at tross54@bloomberg.net, Robert JamesonFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
|
| UK Conservatives plan January Brexit, February budget if they win election Posted: 04 Dec 2019 02:30 PM PST ![UK Conservatives plan January Brexit, February budget if they win election]( "UK Conservatives plan January Brexit, February budget if they win election") Prime Minister Boris Johnson's Conservatives said on Wednesday they would complete Britain's exit from the European Union by the end of January and hold a budget in February if they win the national election. With a week to go until the Dec. 12 vote which will decide the fate of Brexit and the world's fifth-largest economy, the Conservatives lead the opposition Labour Party in opinion polls but it remains unclear whether they are far enough ahead to form a majority government. Setting out their plans for the first 100 days of government, the Conservatives pledged to ratify Britain's EU exit, introduce new domestic law on issues such as health, justice and education, and set out tax cuts in a budget.
|
| Johnson says Britain can soon stop talking about Brexit if he wins vote Posted: 04 Dec 2019 02:24 PM PST ![Johnson says Britain can soon stop talking about Brexit if he wins vote]( "Johnson says Britain can soon stop talking about Brexit if he wins vote") British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Wednesday night that the public can soon stop talking about Brexit if he wins next week's general election and that there is significant investment waiting once the political paralysis is over. Britons will vote on Dec. 12 after parliament agreed to an early election, seeking to end more than three years of deep disagreement over the United Kingdom's departure from the European Union that has sapped investors' faith in the stability of the world's fifth largest economy. The European Union granted Britain a third delay to Brexit, which was originally supposed to have taken place at the end of March.
|
| UN says 58 migrants dead as boat capsizes off Mauritania Posted: 04 Dec 2019 02:22 PM PST ![UN says 58 migrants dead as boat capsizes off Mauritania]( "UN says 58 migrants dead as boat capsizes off Mauritania") At least 58 people are dead after a boat carrying dozens of migrants capsized in the Atlantic Ocean off the West African nation of Mauritania, the U.N. migration agency said Wednesday. It was one of the deadliest disasters this year among migrants trying to make the perilous journey to Europe. The boat carrying at least 150 people had been low on fuel while approaching Mauritania, the International Organization for Migration said in a statement.
|
| Trump toys with NATO defense pact — the one that rallied around America after 9/11 Posted: 04 Dec 2019 02:16 PM PST  President Donald Trump's words must be music to dictator Vladimir Putin's ears but alarming to NATO members closest to Russia: Our view
|
| William Barr Is Making It Harder to Protect the 2020 Election Posted: 04 Dec 2019 02:00 PM PST  (Bloomberg Opinion) -- The attorney general of the United States is commonly described as the nation's "chief law enforcement officer." Yet the current attorney general, William Barr, seems to have a pronounced aversion to enforcing certain laws.Since February, when he became attorney general for the second time in his long career, Barr's most notable priority has been undermining his own department's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Now news reports suggest that Barr contests the conclusion of a report by the Justice Department inspector general that the investigation was justified.In some ways Barr's campaign is unsurprising. In 2017, he stated that a bogus controversy involving Hillary Clinton and a Canadian mining company called Uranium One was more worthy of investigation than the staggering array of contacts between Trump's presidential campaign and Russia, and the equally staggering number of lies told to explain away those contacts.Barr's notion that an investigation of the Trump campaign was inappropriate is astonishing. Consider:On the Russian side, there were multiple cyber hacks of Trump's Democratic opponents and the subsequent public dissemination of the results of those hacks, which were timed to provide maximum advantage to Trump. Some of Russia's malicious social media campaigns were intended to suppress the votes of Democratic constituencies. During this treachery, Russians met with Trump family members, top Trump campaign staff and various Trump advisers — more than 100 contacts overall.Then there is the Trump side of things. Start with a candidate who publicly solicited Russian cybercrime to aid his campaign while he was also currying favor with Moscow for a real estate deal and claiming, falsely, that he had no business dealings in Russia. Add to the record that, according to his eldest son, his business depended on Russian investment. Trump's subsequent conduct, including his behavior last year in Helsinki with Russian President Vladimir Putin, hardly eased concerns about his links to Russia. Barr's attack on the Russia investigation does not alter the facts on record. What it does do, however, is send a powerful message to the investigators and prosecutors of the Justice Department.That message is clear: If you pursue more crimes involving Trump, you will be hung out to dry. Think of Sally Yates, Lisa Page, Peter Strzok and Bruce Ohr — all department employees who have been savaged by Trump and Republican allies for doing their jobs protecting the U.S. from foreign sabotage.In Senate testimony in May, Barr sent a loud signal about his reluctance to enforce the law against foreign interference in U.S. elections. Democratic Senator Chris Coons of Delaware asked Barr whether the FBI should be alerted in the event North Korean agents — North Korea! — offered to help a U.S. campaign.Though the law against foreign interference is unambiguous, and North Korea is a heinous police state, Barr hesitated. When he finally answered, he qualified his response, allowing that if the contact were made by "a foreign intelligence service, yes." Everyone else, apparently, is free to proceed."There could not be a more destructive attorney general than if Vladimir Putin had appointed Barr himself," said former FBI assistant director Frank Figliuzzi this week. As Russia's election interference campaign ramps up for 2020, Putin may find he has an easier time of it than expected: Barr has essentially issued instructions to leave the door unlocked, and a light on.To contact the author of this story: Francis Wilkinson at fwilkinson1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Michael Newman at mnewman43@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Francis Wilkinson writes editorials on politics and U.S. domestic policy for Bloomberg Opinion. He was executive editor of the Week. He was previously a writer for Rolling Stone, a communications consultant and a political media strategist.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
|
| William Barr Is Making It Harder to Protect the 2020 Election Posted: 04 Dec 2019 02:00 PM PST  (Bloomberg Opinion) -- The attorney general of the United States is commonly described as the nation's "chief law enforcement officer." Yet the current attorney general, William Barr, seems to have a pronounced aversion to enforcing certain laws.Since February, when he became attorney general for the second time in his long career, Barr's most notable priority has been undermining his own department's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Now news reports suggest that Barr contests the conclusion of a report by the Justice Department inspector general that the investigation was justified.In some ways Barr's campaign is unsurprising. In 2017, he stated that a bogus controversy involving Hillary Clinton and a Canadian mining company called Uranium One was more worthy of investigation than the staggering array of contacts between Trump's presidential campaign and Russia, and the equally staggering number of lies told to explain away those contacts.Barr's notion that an investigation of the Trump campaign was inappropriate is astonishing. Consider:On the Russian side, there were multiple cyber hacks of Trump's Democratic opponents and the subsequent public dissemination of the results of those hacks, which were timed to provide maximum advantage to Trump. Some of Russia's malicious social media campaigns were intended to suppress the votes of Democratic constituencies. During this treachery, Russians met with Trump family members, top Trump campaign staff and various Trump advisers — more than 100 contacts overall.Then there is the Trump side of things. Start with a candidate who publicly solicited Russian cybercrime to aid his campaign while he was also currying favor with Moscow for a real estate deal and claiming, falsely, that he had no business dealings in Russia. Add to the record that, according to his eldest son, his business depended on Russian investment. Trump's subsequent conduct, including his behavior last year in Helsinki with Russian President Vladimir Putin, hardly eased concerns about his links to Russia. Barr's attack on the Russia investigation does not alter the facts on record. What it does do, however, is send a powerful message to the investigators and prosecutors of the Justice Department.That message is clear: If you pursue more crimes involving Trump, you will be hung out to dry. Think of Sally Yates, Lisa Page, Peter Strzok and Bruce Ohr — all department employees who have been savaged by Trump and Republican allies for doing their jobs protecting the U.S. from foreign sabotage.In Senate testimony in May, Barr sent a loud signal about his reluctance to enforce the law against foreign interference in U.S. elections. Democratic Senator Chris Coons of Delaware asked Barr whether the FBI should be alerted in the event North Korean agents — North Korea! — offered to help a U.S. campaign.Though the law against foreign interference is unambiguous, and North Korea is a heinous police state, Barr hesitated. When he finally answered, he qualified his response, allowing that if the contact were made by "a foreign intelligence service, yes." Everyone else, apparently, is free to proceed."There could not be a more destructive attorney general than if Vladimir Putin had appointed Barr himself," said former FBI assistant director Frank Figliuzzi this week. As Russia's election interference campaign ramps up for 2020, Putin may find he has an easier time of it than expected: Barr has essentially issued instructions to leave the door unlocked, and a light on.To contact the author of this story: Francis Wilkinson at fwilkinson1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Michael Newman at mnewman43@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Francis Wilkinson writes editorials on politics and U.S. domestic policy for Bloomberg Opinion. He was executive editor of the Week. He was previously a writer for Rolling Stone, a communications consultant and a political media strategist.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
|
| Surprising 1st results from NASA's sun-skimming spacecraft Posted: 04 Dec 2019 01:54 PM PST  NASA's sun-skimming spacecraft, the Parker Solar Probe, is surprising scientists with its unprecedented close views of our star. NASA's Nicola Fox compared this unexpected switchback phenomenon to the cracking of a whip. "They're striking and it's hard to not think that they're somehow important in the whole problem," said Stuart Bale of the University of California, Berkeley, who was part of the team.
|
| Florida Republican: 'We should hang’ treasonous Democrats Posted: 04 Dec 2019 01:40 PM PST ![Florida Republican: 'We should hang' treasonous Democrats]( "Florida Republican: 'We should hang' treasonous Democrats") Local and national GOP leaders distanced themselves Wednesday from a Florida congressional candidate who sent a fundraising letter stating that "anti-American radical Democrats" should be hung for treason. Omar was born in Somalia and came to the U.S. as a child. In the recent letter to potential donors, he said that "we should hang" Omar and other "traitors" for "abusing our system to destroy our country." He mentioned "tinfoil hat accusations" against President Donald Trump, but didn't elaborate.
|
| US Navy seizes suspected Iranian missile parts set for Yemen Posted: 04 Dec 2019 01:29 PM PST  A Navy warship has seized a "significant cache" of suspected Iranian guided missile parts headed to rebels in Yemen, U.S. officials said Wednesday, marking the first time that such sophisticated components have been taken en route to the war there. The seizure from a small boat by the U.S. Navy and a U.S. Coast Guard boarding team happened last Wednesday in the northern Arabian Sea, and the weapons have been linked to Iran. Officials said the incident illustrates the continuing illegal smuggling of weapons to Houthi rebels and comes as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were meeting, with Iran as the main topic.
|
| Ukrainian gas chief meets with prosecutors probing Giuliani Posted: 04 Dec 2019 01:17 PM PST  Federal prosecutors have interviewed the head of Ukraine's state-owned gas company as part of an investigation into the business dealings of President Donald Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and two of Giuliani's business associates. Andriy Kobolyev met voluntarily with representatives of the Justice Department, according lawyer Lanny Breuer, who represents the chief executive officer of Naftogaz, Ukraine's biggest natural gas provider.
|
| Netanyahu presses Pompeo for more pressure on 'tottering' Iran Posted: 04 Dec 2019 01:12 PM PST  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Portugal on Wednesday and called for increased pressure on the "tottering" Iranian government. Netanyahu stressed that Iran was the main subject of his meeting with Pompeo, adding "the second subject is Iran, and so is the third".
|
| Germany Says Russia Is Suspected in Berlin Assassination Posted: 04 Dec 2019 12:15 PM PST  BERLIN -- The German authorities declared Wednesday that Russia was suspected of being behind the daylight assassination in Berlin this summer of a former fighter with Chechen separatists. Berlin also expelled two Russian diplomats, adding new strains to relations with Moscow.The announcement deepened concerns about Russian contract killings in Europe, after last year's nerve agent poisoning of Sergei Skripal, a former Russian spy who was living in Britain. Western countries responded to that by expelling more than 100 Russian diplomats from their countries and German lawmakers called for a similar joint European response to the killing in Berlin.Peter Frank, Germany's federal prosecutor, said his office would take over the case, and identified the killer as Vadim Krasikov, who is believed to be a Russian contract killer, only as Vadim K., in keeping with German privacy laws.The Dossier Center, a London-based research group founded by Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, a Russian former oil billionaire, and other investigation groups had previously identified the suspect as Vadim N. Krasikov.The Dossier Center shared with German authorities what it described as compelling evidence linking the killing to the Russian government, a spokesman said last month. Many of the details cited by the federal prosecutor Wednesday checked against those previously released by the center.German authorities had struggled to identify the suspect since he was taken into police custody in August, after witnesses said they had seen him ride a bicycle up to the victim and shoot him once in the torso and twice in the head before fleeing the scene.Although authorities considered Russian involvement virtually from the start, it was only in recent weeks that sufficient evidence was gathered to back those suspicions, Frank said in a statement. The additional evidence elevated the killing of the former fighter, a Russian Georgian citizen identified by prosecutors only as Tornike K., from a simple murder case to a state security threat."There are sufficient, real indications that the killing of Tornike K. was carried out either on orders by the officials in the Russian Federation or those in the autonomous Chechen Republic, as part of the Russian Republic," Frank's office said in a statement.The victim was previously identified by German authorities by an alias, Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, a former commander of a Chechen separatist force whom the Russian state news media has depicted as a terrorist.The prosecutor cited photographs of the suspect that matched images of a Vadim K. who had been sought by Russian authorities for a 2013 killing in Moscow that was also carried out by an assassin on a bicycle. Russian authorities later withdrew the warrant, although the investigation remained open, German prosecutors said.Immediately after the announcement, the Foreign Ministry in Berlin ordered two diplomats stationed at the Russian Embassy expelled, citing Moscow's unwillingness to cooperate with the investigation.The Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, said that Russia would take "a little time" to work out its countermeasures, the news agency Interfax reported.Maria Zakharova, spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, denounced what she called Germany's "politicized approach" to the murder investigation."We view the German claims regarding the expulsion of two employees of the Russian Embassy in Berlin to be groundless and unfriendly," Zakharova said, according to Russian news agencies. "We will be forced to implement a set of measures in response."German authorities' frustration with their Russian counterparts built over three months as investigators in Berlin investigated the case but received no help from Moscow in identifying the man in their custody.Eventually, the office of Chancellor Angela Merkel became involved and a complaint was made to the Kremlin about the lack of cooperation. On Wednesday, Merkel defended the decision to expel the Russian diplomats as a consequence of the inaction."We took this step because we did not see that Russia was supporting our investigation of this murder," she told reporters in Watford, England, where Western leaders are gathered to celebrate NATO's 70th anniversary.According to the prosecutor, the suspect was carrying a Russian passport when arrested Aug. 23 that Russian authorities confirmed as authentic. Although the document identified him as Vadim Andreevich Sokolov, investigators said at the time that they believed the name was fake.The suspect had arrived in Europe on a flight from Moscow to Paris, where he picked up a visa that allowed him to work and move freely throughout the European Union, the prosecutor added. Three days later, he continued to Warsaw, Poland, where he checked into a hotel for a five-night stay. After only three nights, however, he left and did not return. The following day he was arrested in Berlin.The man's visa said he had been employed as an engineer since 2017 at a company called Zao Rust, based in St. Petersburg, Russia. But according to records in Russia, the company was founded in 2018 and was in "reorganization" at the time his visa was issued, according to the prosecutor.When German authorities tried to contact the company, they discovered that the fax number listed for it was the same as that of two other companies, both belonging to the Russian Defense Ministry, the prosecutor said.Khodorkovsky, the founder of the Dossier Center, said in an interview that, "The Kremlin is no longer ashamed of reasonable suspicions that it carries out murders in Western Europe.""No democracy can allow this," he added, warning that "indulging" Russia would not pay off in the long term.Many German lawmakers have said that they believe the evidence implicating Russia from the Dossier Center -- as well as from the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel and from Bellingcat, an investigative group -- is strong enough to merit the case being treated as a matter of state security."The federal prosecutor taking over is a good sign that should have come weeks ago," said Konstantin von Notz, a lawmaker for the opposition Greens and deputy leader of the parliamentary committee that oversees the country's intelligence services.Roderich Kiesewetter, a foreign affairs expert for Merkel's Christian Democratic Union party, said the new evidence justified sanctions against Moscow."Russia has repeatedly ignored Germany's request, as a partner, for an explanation and to help identify the suspected perpetrator," Kiesewetter said."The evidence we have now points to the involvement of a Russian state actor," he added. "Therefore, it is correct to respond to the lack of cooperation with diplomatic sanctions to make clear our intention for a swift clarification."The one compelling lead the Germans had early on -- a mysterious email sent shortly after the shooting that identified the killer as a former St. Petersburg police officer imprisoned for murder -- turned out to be a dead end. German authorities now believe that the officer in question, who was first publicly identified by The New York Times, remains in a Russian prison, 1,500 miles from Berlin.In a letter sent to The Times, someone claiming to be the St. Petersburg police officer, Vladimir Stepanov, denied that he had anything to do with the killing in Berlin and insisted he was still in prison.The return address was IK-11, a penal colony in the Russian town of Bor that is said to be reserved for former law enforcement and intelligence officers convicted of serious crimes.A stamp indicated the letter had been inspected by prison authorities.Other countries are watching the Berlin investigation closely."We find it sad that a Georgian citizen was killed in the middle of the day in central Berlin and so many questions remain open," said Elguja Khokrishvili, the Georgian ambassador to Germany. "We hope that the German authorities will pursue this case until we know the truth."This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2019 The New York Times Company
|
| Levinson family in court 13 years after Iran disappearance Posted: 04 Dec 2019 12:09 PM PST  "I was worried something would happen to him," Levinson told a Washington courtroom on Wednesday. Robert Levinson never returned from that trip, and his family members are now testifying in court about the devastating impact of his disappearance. Levinson, a former FBI agent, disappeared on March 9, 2007, when he was scheduled to meet a source on the Iranian island of Kish.
|
| North Korea warns U.N. Security Council not to discuss rights Posted: 04 Dec 2019 12:08 PM PST ![North Korea warns U.N. Security Council not to discuss rights]( "North Korea warns U.N. Security Council not to discuss rights") The warning came in a letter from North Korea's U.N. ambassador, Kim Song, which was seen by Reuters. Diplomats said several members of the 15-member council are planning to request a meeting this month on human rights abuses in North Korea.
|
| Jimmy Carter released from Georgia hospital Posted: 04 Dec 2019 12:01 PM PST  Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter was released from a hospital Wednesday after being treated for a urinary tract infection. Carter, 95, was discharged from Phoebe Sumter Medical Center in Americus, Georgia, Carter Center spokeswoman Deanna Congileo said. "He said he looks forward to further rest and recovery at home in Plains, Georgia," Congileo said.
|
| Once-a-month birth control pill? Experiment works in animals Posted: 04 Dec 2019 11:05 AM PST  Birth control pills work great if women remember to take them every day but missing doses can mean a surprise pregnancy. Now scientists have figured out how to pack a month's supply into one capsule. The trick: A tiny star-shaped gadget that unfolds in the stomach and gradually releases the drug.
|
| North Korea warns US against meeting on its human rights Posted: 04 Dec 2019 10:52 AM PST  North Korea warned Wednesday that tensions on the Korean peninsula will increase and the situation "take a turn for the worse again" if the United States goes ahead with a U.N. Security Council meeting on the country's human rights situation. "The United States and those countries on board shall bear full responsibility," he warned.
|
| U.N., lender CAF seek $350 million loan deal for government of Venezuela's Maduro Posted: 04 Dec 2019 10:34 AM PST ![U.N., lender CAF seek $350 million loan deal for government of Venezuela's Maduro]( "U.N., lender CAF seek $350 million loan deal for government of Venezuela's Maduro") Latin American lender CAF and the United Nations are seeking to provide financing to the government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to improve electricity supply in the crisis-stricken nation that is suffering chronic blackouts, the two institutions told Reuters. Lawmakers in Venezuela's congress have proposed a financing mechanism under which CAF would provide $350 million to make improvements to the ailing power sector, with the U.N. Development Program carrying out the investments.
|
| China Adds to Calls Seeking Extended Life for UN Carbon Credits Posted: 04 Dec 2019 09:42 AM PST  (Bloomberg) -- China has added its voice to calls seeking a longer life for existing United Nations carbon credits.China was the biggest generator of emission credits for the UN's Clean Development Mechanism, a market that helped cut costs for factories and power stations in the European Union after it started the world's biggest carbon market almost 15 years ago."We hope the transition of the CDM regime could be agreed on and CDM projects could be transferred to the Paris agreement," Ma Aimin, deputy director of China's National Center for Climate Change Strategy and International Cooperation, told reporters Wednesday at climate talks in Madrid. "It will not be a dealbreaker if they don't transition."The existing UN market collapsed about seven years ago as demand dried up and supply continued to rise. Envoys at the UN talks this week are talking about how to structure international carbon trading after 2020 as part of the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change.Spot Certified Emission Reductions from the CDM rose 11% to 21 euro cents on ICE Futures Europe Wednesday, as of 4:25 p.m. in London. They are down 16% year to date.It remains unclear what sort of carbon trading will emerge from the UN talks, which are due to finish on Dec. 13.Draft rules published Wednesday leave open the issue of which credits might be valid under potential markets. One choice: They might allow use of those credits created before 2020 or only after that date."A few years back several countries decided to withdraw their support to CDM projects in China and many have already made the transition from international projects into locally supported projects," Ma Aimin said.On Tuesday, Brazil said envoys at the talks should find a way to revive credits generated under the CDM. Killing existing credits would limit the private sector's appetite for the Paris markets.The European Union has sought to curb the CDM's life. It will only use carbon markets under Paris if it tightens emission-reduction targets, Germany's climate minister said Monday.Use of existing credits would add to supply, giving developers an incentive to work on more projects that reduce greenhouse gases.China also took aim at a possible plan by Europe to introduce a carbon tax on goods at its border, to be levied on nations that want to sell goods to the EU without introducing policies that protect the climate."Unilaterally imposing a CO2 tariff would create more uncertainties," Ma Aimin said. It would "create many questions. Will the EU impose its carbon emissions tariff on every country or will it have differentiated treatment and only for special countries? Will it be on all products?"Should envoys agree carbon market rules at these talks amid global trade tensions, it will be no small feat. Spain's envoy who is leading the talks voiced optimism that a deal could be reached. "Right now there is a very strong will and conviction to work to complete the agenda," said Teresa Ribera, Spain's minister for ecological transition in an interview on the sidelines of the conference. "There are some countries that remain more reticent and silent. They don't have a real opposition, or at least they haven't shown it yet. But their involvement is important, and they haven't been showing as much will to accelerate things as other countries." To contact the authors of this story: Laura Millan Lombrana in Madrid at lmillan4@bloomberg.netMathew Carr in London at m.carr@bloomberg.netJeremy Hodges in London at jhodges17@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Reed Landberg at landberg@bloomberg.netFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
|
| Impeachment takeaways: History lessons, partisan feuds Posted: 04 Dec 2019 09:28 AM PST  The next phase of the impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump moved to the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday with public hearings featuring professors of law who discussed the constitutional origins of Congress' impeachment power. Three of the lawyers were chosen by Democrats, one by Republicans, and the experts split much like the committee, along partisan lines, over whether Trump committed an impeachable offense when he asked the president of Ukraine to investigate his political rival Joe Biden. Republicans allied with the president used the hearing to force procedural votes and delay the proceedings, adding to an unruly atmosphere even with the professors' academic recounting of constitutional principles.
|
| N.Korea warns Trump it will use 'corresponding' force if attacked Posted: 04 Dec 2019 08:49 AM PST  North Korea on Wednesday warned that if the United States used military force against Pyongyang it would take "prompt corresponding actions at any level", in response to comments by US President Donald Trump. Denuclearisation negotiations between Pyongyang and Washington have been deadlocked since a summit in Hanoi broke up in February, and the renewed threats come as a deadline set by Pyongyang for fresh concessions approaches. Trump on Tuesday indicated that military action was still possible when he was asked about North Korea on the sidelines of a NATO summit in Britain on Tuesday.
|
| President Who? Boris Johnson Plays It Safe and Doesn’t Mention Trump Posted: 04 Dec 2019 08:09 AM PST ![President Who? Boris Johnson Plays It Safe and Doesn't Mention Trump]( "President Who? Boris Johnson Plays It Safe and Doesn't Mention Trump") (Bloomberg) -- Has Boris Johnson forgotten the U.S. president's name? Perhaps a mental blank explained why he completed a 21-minute press conference at the end of the NATO summit without once mentioning Donald Trump.The more likely reason is that with voting a week away, Johnson wanted to avoid as much as possible being linked to the president. On top of that, he'd managed to get to the end of the two-day meeting of NATO leaders without Trump disrupting the election campaign. There was no point in provoking anything now.Questioner after questioner at Johnson's closing press conference asked him about the president. Johnson dodged and swerved. He name-checked Angela Merkel, Emmanuel Macron and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, but managed to avoid referring to Trump as an individual, even obliquely.Did the prime minister think Trump was good for the West? Johnson said he thought the U.S. had been the guarantor of security for 70 years. But what did he think about Trump? He thought "the current U.S. administration" had worked well with the U.K. That was as close as he would get to a reference to the president.What did Johnson think about being caught on camera sharing a joke with Canada's Justin Trudeau at Trump's expense? "That's complete nonsense. I don't know where that came from." Asked again about the video, the prime minister insisted: "I really don't know what is being referred to."Had he and Trump discussed plans to charge multinational corporations, including Facebook and Google, a new digital tax during their conversation on Tuesday evening? "That's been raised with our friends in the U.S."What did he think of Trump's claim that he didn't know Prince Andrew, given that the pair had been pictured together? That question was totally extraneous to the NATO summit.Johnson's main rival in the U.K. election, Labour's Jeremy Corbyn, has built his campaign on arguing that the prime minister must be ousted because he's planning to sell-out Britain's National Health Service to U.S. companies in a trade deal with Trump after Brexit. Johnson denies this, but some Conservative officials fear it is an argument that could work for Corbyn.Johnson was asked if he had told Trump that the NHS wouldn't be part of trade talks. "I might wind up this press conference now," he replied. "I think we're starting to scrape the barrel."To contact the reporter on this story: Robert Hutton in London at rhutton1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Tim Ross at tross54@bloomberg.net, Thomas PennyFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
|
| Trump Calls Trudeau ‘Two-Faced’ After Video of Reception Remarks Posted: 04 Dec 2019 08:01 AM PST  (Bloomberg) -- Donald Trump called Justin Trudeau "two-faced" after a hot-mic video captured the Canadian prime minister joking about the U.S. president's extended remarks to reporters at a NATO summit this week."He's two-faced," Trump told reporters at a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Wednesday. "I find him to be a very nice guy, but the truth is I called him out on the fact that he's not paying 2% and I guess he's not happy about it."A TV camera caught Trudeau apparently joking about Trump with France's Emmanuel Macron and the U.K.'s Boris Johnson at a reception on Tuesday. The U.S. president wasn't present.Johnson asked Macron why he had arrived late to the reception, and Trudeau interjected, saying, "He was late because he takes a 40-minute press conference off the top."The remark was an apparent reference to Trump's penchant for holding impromptu news conferences at the beginning of his meetings with other leaders. Trump spoke to reporters for more than two hours combined on Tuesday before meetings with NATO General Secretary Jens Stoltenberg, Macron and Trudeau."You just watched his team's jaws drop to the floor," Trudeau added.In a news conference Wednesday, Trudeau said he was remarking on the length of Trump's news conferences and that his "jaws drop" comment was referring to Trump's surprise announcement of the site of the next Group of Seven summit, which will be held at Camp David in Maryland."We were all surprised and I think pleased to learn that the next G-7 will be at Camp David, I think that was an unscheduled announcement," Trudeau said as he sought to downplay his comments. "We will continue to have an excellent relationship."Tuesday MeetingIn his meeting with Trudeau, Trump questioned the Canadian prime minister about how much his country spends on its own defense. Canada does not meet NATO's target for member countries to spend 2% of their gross domestic product on their militaries."What are you at? What is your number?" Trump asked.Trudeau tried to evade answering directly, saying: "The number we talk about is a 70% increase over these past years. We are increasing significantly our defense spending from previous governments that cut it."But Trump followed up. "Okay, where are you now, in terms of your number?"After some discussion with an aide, Trudeau answered: "1.4.""They'll get there. They're getting there," Trump said.After firing back at Trudeau in the Merkel meeting, Trump later had lunch with countries who are meeting NATO's 2% defense spending target. At that gathering, he said he'd cancel his formal news conference later in the day.As reporters left the room, Trump turned to the table and quipped: "That was funny when I said the guy is two-faced."(Updates with Trudeau and Trump comments starting in seventh paragraph.)To contact the reporters on this story: Justin Sink in Washington at jsink1@bloomberg.net;Josh Wingrove in Washington at jwingrove4@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Alex Wayne at awayne3@bloomberg.net, Justin Blum, Joshua GalluFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
|
| Germany Finally Acts on Its Russian Murder Case Posted: 04 Dec 2019 07:58 AM PST ![Germany Finally Acts on Its Russian Murder Case]( "Germany Finally Acts on Its Russian Murder Case") (Bloomberg Opinion) -- Germany's reaction to the murder of a prominent Chechen in Berlin, carried out by a Russian citizen with highly suspicious travel papers, has been criticized as tepid and slow, especially compared to the U.K.'s forceful response in a similar case last year. But after an extremely long wind-up, German authorities on Wednesday finally expelled two diplomats and made their suspicion of Russian government involvement official.The victim in the case, Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, had fought against the Russian military during the Chechen conflict and attempted to help Georgia fight off a Russian invasion in 2008. After an attempt on his life in Tbilisi in 2015, he traveled to Germany and applied for asylum. In August, a man rode up to him on an electric bike in Berlin's Tiergarten park and shot him three times, twice in the head.The suspected assassin was quickly arrested; he presented a fresh Russian passport in the name of Vadim Sokolov. The investigative outfit Bellingcat soon found out that the holder of this passport had no documented history within the Russian bureaucracy and had provided false information when he applied for the visa on which he traveled to Europe.On Tuesday, Bellingcat claimed that Sokolov's real name was Vadim Krasikov. It reported that a man of that name, who resembles Khangoshvili's alleged assassin, had been sought in Russia in connection with another contract hit, also involving a bicycle. Warrants issued in connection with that case, the site said, were subsequently withdrawn without public explanation.Apparently, the German federal prosecutor-general's office supports this identification. On Wednesday, it took over the case from the Berlin authorities, naming the suspect as "Vadim K., alias Vadim S." The reason it intervened, it said, was that the investigation had turned up "sufficient factual evidence" that the murder had been carried out "either on behalf of State entities of the Russian Federation or of the Chechen Republic as part of the Russian Federation." That makes Khangoshvili's killing a German national-security concern.The case presents a stark contrast to that of former double agent Sergei Skripal, who was poisoned along with his daughter Yulia in the English town of Salisbury last year. Just days after the unsuccessful assassination attempt, the U.K. government publicly accused Russia, appealed to other Western nations for solidarity, and coordinated a response that led to the expulsion of about 100 Russian diplomats around the world, four of them from Germany. Although the Russian propaganda machine did its best to portray this aggressive response as a case of anti-Russian paranoia, nobody outside the Russian spy apparatus had a motive to kill Skripal.In Khangoshvili's case, just as in Skripal's, Russia's government has denied involvement. But this time its insistence that the response has been "politicized" is even more egregious, since Germany's measured reaction followed a thorough investigation. For three months, Germany patiently asked Russia for more information about the suspect, a Russian citizen who couldn't be traced under the name he had given, and got no cooperation. The foreign ministry's statement on the diplomat expulsion said assistance from Russia would still be welcome. And Germany isn't trying to raise a public-relations storm as the U.K. did.Of course, Germany's relationship with Russia gives it far less latitude for a forceful response. It stands alone against powerful opposition to the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which is meant to start pumping Russian natural gas into Germany next year, and Chancellor Angela Merkel is expected to help mediate peace talks between Russia and Ukraine next week.On the other hand, though, a large Chechen diaspora is watching. Between 2012 and 2017, some 36,000 Chechens applied for asylum in Germany; most of them are avowed enemies of Russian President Vladimir Putin and his appointee as head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov. Unless the German government acts forcefully in the Khangoshvili case, some of them will have strong reasons to fear for their lives. Germany has a responsibility to protect them — and to make clear that assassinations arranged by a foreign state on its soil will have consequences.Germany appears to be resolving this dilemma in the most German way possible: by following the rules. The Berlin investigators worked methodically until they reached a politically charged conclusion. Then federal prosecutors took over, even though the timing was diplomatically awkward. Now the foreign ministry has expelled Russian diplomats after evidence of state involvement became clear. More publicity — of the German, measured kind — and possibly more retaliatory moves can be expected as the investigation proceeds. It would be counterproductive for the Kremlin to use the same cavalier tactics as it did with Britain. Here in Germany, nobody wants to politicize the Khangoshvili murder. They're just trying to get at the truth.To contact the author of this story: Leonid Bershidsky at lbershidsky@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Timothy Lavin at tlavin1@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Leonid Bershidsky is Bloomberg Opinion's Europe columnist. He was the founding editor of the Russian business daily Vedomosti and founded the opinion website Slon.ru.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
|
| Trump Moves Toward Labeling Mexican Cartels as Terrorist Groups Posted: 04 Dec 2019 07:53 AM PST ![Trump Moves Toward Labeling Mexican Cartels as Terrorist Groups]( "Trump Moves Toward Labeling Mexican Cartels as Terrorist Groups") (Bloomberg) -- The Trump administration is moving forward on calls to classify Mexican drug cartels as terrorist organizations after the killing of nine U.S. citizens in Mexico, with top officials seeking to reach a decision this week, according to three people familiar with the matter.President Donald Trump is scheduled to meet Friday with top advisers at the White House to discuss whether to proceed with the move, said the people who spoke on condition of anonymity. Under the plan, the State Department would be allowed to designate cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations, putting them in the same category as U.S. enemies including Islamic State and Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.Key administration officials are in favor of allowing such designations for drug traffickers, said the people. At least nine members of a Mormon family were killed in northern Mexico last month in an apparent attack by drug cartels, prompting Trump to say America would help wipe traffickers "off the face of the earth." Trump later tweeted that an army may be needed to fight the gangs.Trump told former Fox News host Bill O'Reilly last week that he had already offered assistance to Mexican president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador but that his counterpart had declined the offer. "I've actually offered him to let us go in and clean it out," Trump said in the interview.Trump appeared to refer to Mexico's drug cartels during a news conference Tuesday in London, where he was attending a NATO summit: "We'll be looking at other forms of terror. We'll be looking at other countries. We'll be looking at countries that are aggressive, and not just one particular part of this world."Narcotics traffickers can already be sanctioned under the Kingpin Act; however, the terrorist designation gives Justice Department prosecutors more leeway in criminal proceedings.The terrorist designation "is a symbolic and moral condemnation of drug cartels," said Peter Harrell, a fellow at the Center for New American Security, a Washington-based research group. "You're sending a message that these are bad guys but also that these are terrorist organizations."\--With assistance from Nick Wadhams.To contact the reporters on this story: Saleha Mohsin in Washington at smohsin2@bloomberg.net;Jennifer Jacobs in Washington at jjacobs68@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Alex Wayne at awayne3@bloomberg.net, Justin Blum, Joshua GalluFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
|
| Trump Says Macron Took Back His Negative Comments: NATO Update Posted: 04 Dec 2019 07:52 AM PST (Bloomberg) -- North Atlantic Treaty Organization leaders gathered outside London to talk about issues ranging from arms control to China, wrapping up a two-day gathering to mark the alliance's 70th anniversary. The first day featured a tense exchange between Donald Trump and Emmanuel Macron and an evening reception at Buckingham Palace -- with leaders caught gossiping.Must read: NATO Allies Rally to Isolate Macron as Formal Meeting UnderwayKey developments:At Queen's reception, leaders captured on camera discussing TrumpNATO leaders asked about Huawei and ChinaTrump blasts Trudeau and scraps news conferenceAccording to Trump, Macron took it all back (3:48 p.m.)One of the dominant features of these two days was the tussle between Macron and Trump over the merits of the alliance. Trump has gone from being a big critic to a defender. Now it is Macron making a stink about NATO's limitations.Trump says "he's taken back his comments very much so on NATO." Judging by Macron's news conference, that does not appear to be the case.Did Macron compare himself to icebreaker? (3:20 p.m.)Macron is giving a long news conference where he stood by many of his stern criticism of NATO -- and the need for change -- and the role of Turkey. He seems to see himself as that agent of change."When the ice has built up, you need an icebreaker, to create a way forward," he said. "This is our responsibility" and called it "France's historic vocation."Trump's trade threat (3:12 p.m.)Trump escalated his threat to slap trade penalties on NATO allies who fail to boost their defense spending. "If they don't, we'll get them on trade. One way or the other, they're paying, folks. That I can tell you," Trump said on Wednesday during lunch with the leaders of the eight other countries who have met the alliances commitment to spend 2% of gross domestic product on defense.Trump has chastised NATO since his 2016 campaign, accusing countries of ripping off the U.S., which he said has shouldered an unfair burden of defending allies. That criticism sparked fear he could withdraw the U.S. from the alliance. But he spent much of the London summit claiming credit for countries' increased military budgets.Canadians downplay "two-faced" comment (2:50 p.m.)Trudeau is likely to respond to the Trump jab during a press conference Wednesday in London, two officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.The Canadian leader regularly tries to defuse spats like this and has a habit of dancing around direct questions in press conferences. The two officials downplayed the scope of the latest spat, which evokes last year's eruption at the Group of Seven summit -- one said Trudeau's hot-mic comments were mild and that Trump's retaliation was, itself, also pretty mild. The other official shrugged it off, saying U.S.-Canada ties are strong, and the benefit of that is countries can work through things. The important thing is the work the countries are doing together on joint initiatives, the official said.Trump is heading back home (2:33 p.m.)Trump said in a tweet that he won't hold a scheduled news conference to conclude the NATO summit, noting that he's spoken repeatedly to reporters at meetings with world leaders that past two days.Trump said at a lunch with other NATO members that he'll speak with reporters at two more meetings, with the leaders of Denmark and Italy. "I think that's enough," he said. "There'd be nothing to say."Johnson: Huawei Could be Barred From 5G Contracts (2:32 p.m.)U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson suggested he might decide against allowing Huawei to supply technology for the U.K.'s 5g infrastructure. He said co-operating with international security allies will be the key factor in the decision. "I don't want this country to be unnecessarily hostile to investment from overseas, on the other hand, we cannot prejudice our vital national security interest," Johnson told a news conference in Watford, England.Asked if he discussed digital taxation with Trump during the meeting, Johnson said "that's obviously something that's being raised with our friends in the U.S.""We do need to be looking at the question of the vast revenues of big digital companies," he said. "They are not paying much tax in proportion to the huge sales that they make in this country and we need to address that."Johnson: Trump stands "shoulder to shoulder" with U.K. (2:15 p.m.)"I certainly think the United States is the guarantor -- a massive contributor to NATO. Has been for 70 years. A pillar of stability for our collective security," U.K. prime minister says. "This was under the current U.S. administration and they were shoulder to shoulder with us and could not have been more supportive."He declined to discuss the video clip of world leaders apparently gossiping at Buckingham Palace last night which prompted Trump to call Canada's Trudeau "two-faced."Johnson says there's a desire to push NATO forward (2:10 p.m.)"Everybody also attested to the fundamental reason for the success of that alliance and it is based on the idea of solidarity," Johnson says during press conference. "It depends upon values of freedom and democracy the basic idea. One and one encapsulated in Article five of the North Atlantic Treaty, that we come to each other's actualdefence. That's why NATO works, that's why it's so powerful and so successful."He says NATO leaders had "good discussions on Russia," including the need to be aware of Russia but also the need to engage with it.German leader draws sharp contrast with Trump (1:55 p.m.)Angela Merkel kept her words to the huddled press short, and she and her staff kept an icy silence alongside the American delegation while Trump spoke."We had a very successful meeting on NATO and discussed various strategies that will be important for the future of NATO," Merkel said. The chancellor cited unity among the alliance's 29 leaders, "so I'm very pleased."She struggled to chime in only once during Trump's Q&A when he blasted the state of U.S.-EU trade. The new European Commission will provide a "good basis" for further talks, she said.The Trump press conference could be off (1:40 p.m.)The U.S. president has taken a lot of questions from reporters in these two days with most of his bilaterals bona fide press conferences. He even got teased about it. Now, he may have decided to cancel his end-of-summit news conference."We'll go directly back to Washington," Trump told reporters during a meeting with Merkel. "I think we've done plenty of press conferences, unless you're demanding a press conference, we'll do one. But I think we've answered plenty of questions."Trump calls Trudeau "two-faced" (1:25 p.m.)During a joint briefing with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Trump was asked about a video showing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Macron, Johnson and Dutch Premier Mark Rutte apparently discussing him at Buckingham Palace last night."He's two-faced," the U.S. president replied, referring to Trudeau. "And honestly with Trudeau he's a nice guy. I find him to be a very nice guy, but the truth is I called him out on the fact that he's not paying 2% and I guess he's not happy about it."In the clip, Johnson asks Macron why he arrived late to a reception, and Trudeau interjected, saying, "He was late because he takes a 40-minute press conference off the top." Trump wasn't present.Read about that here.Final NATO declaration mentions China's growing influence (1:15 p.m.)"China's growing influence and international policies present both opportunities and challenges that we need to address together as an Alliance," the declaration says. It also takes up a German proposal for an expert group to foster political consultations within NATO.Trump and Erdogan discussed trade, energy in unplanned chat (1:05 p.m.)Trump had an unscheduled meeting on Wednesday with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the sidelines of the meeting.The White House said the two leaders discussed trade, energy and "fulfilling its alliance commitments" during the meeting, which was not open to U.S. media. The sit-down follows Erdogan's controversial visit to the White House last month amid tensions over Turkey's incursion into northern Syria and Ankara's purchase of a Russian missile system.Turkey's actions have sparked friction among NATO allies. Macron on Tuesday pushed back on Trump's statement that Erdogan had no choice but to buy the missile-defense system from Moscow because of former President Barack Obama's refusal to sell him Patriot missiles. Macron accused Erdogan of deliberately defying NATO with the purchase and of working with Islamic State "proxies" in Syria.Trump and Erdogan had a private chat (12:08 p.m.)It wasn't scheduled or planned, but in the end Trump and Erdogan set aside some time to chat among themselves. It was far from the cameras, unlike some of Trump's other high-impact bilaterals. Details and and a readout will emerge later.Johnson stresses NATO's importance in opening remarks (10:30 a.m.)Boris Johnson emphasized the importance of NATO's mutual-defense doctrine after Macron questioned its credibility, saying "for as long as we stand together, no one can hope to defeat us."The U.K. host also implicitly acknowledged some of his French counterpart's recent critique of the alliance, saying "we must never shy away from discussing new realities, particularly NATO's response to emerging threats."Draft declaration shows leaders want a happy Trump (10:10 a.m.)If today's NATO declaration doesn't change from the draft Bloomberg has seen, it really says one thing: Leaders of the alliance are a whole lot more worried about keeping the president of the U.S. happy, than the president of France.The draft is short, a fraction of the length of a normal summit communique, but at a largely ceremonial meeting that was by design. After the boilerplate on NATO's importance, is Trump's priority: Burden sharing, for which he has been claiming a victory lap, on Twitter and in person. In terms of the threats faced by the alliance, Russia again got top billing; terrorism was in its usual secondary spot, along with hybrid warfare, cyber security and –- another new Trump focus –- space.The one concession in the draft to Macron's pre-summit assertion that NATO is 'brain dead' was the acceptance, as a final item, of a German proposal to set up an expert council to do the thinking. But NATO chief Stoltenberg was put in charge, making it unlikely anything too radical will emerge.Trump Keeps Johnson Waiting for Greeting (9:58 a.m.)Donald Trump emerged at the summit venue – though he left Prime Minister Boris Johnson and NATO's Jens Stoltenberg bantering awkwardly as they waited for more than five minutes for the U.S. president to arrive. The rest of the alliance's 28 leaders were already inside. Trump's morning was otherwise low key, having tweeted that he "enjoyed" his meeting with Johnson the evening before, with talks centered on NATO and trade.At one moment Johnson chimed in."How are we doing?" Johnson asked. "Come on!"This comes on the morning after other world leaders were caught apparently mocking his tardiness.The bagpipes played as the leaders set up for the family photo. Trump and Turkey's Erdogan stood side by side in the front row.China mentioned in draft declaration (9:15 a.m.)At the first NATO summit to focus on the rise of China, leaders are due to send a message echoing the European Union position that the country represents both a partner and a rival."We recognize that China's growing influence and international policies present both opportunities and challenges that we need to address together as an Alliance," according to a draft NATO summit declaration seen by Bloomberg News dated Dec. 2.Johnson on Photos with Trump (8:00 a.m.)Boris Johnson, arriving at the Nato summit, dodged a question about whether he's avoiding being photographed with Trump in the midst Britain's election campaign. Diplomatic relations will be under scrutiny after footage emerged of Johnson laughing with other world leaders about the length of Trump's press conference Tuesday (see below)."I'm going to be photographed with every possible leader at Nato," Johnson told reporters.Asked about the talks on Turkey, Johnson replied: "We had a very good discussion about that yesterday afternoon and it is very important that the alliance stays together."Johnson and Stoltenberg make opening remarks (8 a.m.)NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg started the day on the defensive, still fending off queries about French President Emmanuel Macron's comment on the alliance's "brain death.""That's not the case," an animated Stoltenberg told reporters at the summit venue in Watford outside London. "NATO is agile, NATO is active; NATO is adapting – and NATO is the most successful alliance in history, because we have been able to change again and again when the world is changing."The Johnson-Trump meeting behind closed doors (earlier)There was an element of will-they-won't they to whether Johnson and Trump would have their own tete-a-tete. Given the U.S. president's penchant for turning those kinds of meetings into full-on press conferences, there was an element of risk for Johnson. He is on the home stretch of a charged campaign ahead of Dec. 12 elections and Trump can be political kryptonite. Trump is routinely met by protests in London and Johnson's rival accuses Johnson of putting the beloved state-owned health service for sale.In the end, after the reception with the Queen, a bunch of leaders went back to 10 Downing Street. And that is where, in private, the Johnson and Trump had their bilateral -- with cameras nowhere in sight. A read-out was distributed afterward.Read more about why Johnson was wary of his interactions with Trump on this visit here.Having a giggle at Trump's expense (earlier)Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Macron, Johnson and Dutch Premier Mark Rutte are caught on camera at Buckingham Palace discussing what appears to be Trump and delays in arrivals caused by the U.S. president's lengthy comments to reporters earlier in the day. Johnson is seen turned toward Macron asking why he was late and Trudeau interjects to say "He was late because he takes a 40-minute press conference off the top!"\--With assistance from Kitty Donaldson, Onur Ant and Marc Champion.To contact the reporters on this story: Jordan Fabian in Watford, England at jfabian6@bloomberg.net;Jonathan Stearns in Brussels at jstearns2@bloomberg.net;Patrick Donahue in Berlin at pdonahue1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Ben Sills at bsills@bloomberg.net, Flavia Krause-JacksonFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
|
| Nato summit: Donald Trump calls Justin Trudeau 'two-faced' over video of world leaders 'mocking' US President - latest news Posted: 04 Dec 2019 07:51 AM PST  Boris Johnson | Nato is rock solid World leaders gathered in Watford Follow our general election liveblog here Inside the room with Donald Trump Donald Trump has called his Canadian counterpart Justin Trudeau "two-faced" in reaction to a video which appeared to show him and other world leaders mocking the US President. Nato leaders Boris Johnson, Emmanuel Macron and Justin Trudeau were caught on camera appearing to mock Mr Trump at a Buckingham Palace reception on Tuesday night. A huddle, which included Princess Anne, was filmed apparently gossiping about the US president's unorthodox style, although Mr Trump is not mentioned by name. Asked on Wednesday afternoon about Mr Trudeau's involvement, Mr Trump said: "Well, he's two-faced." He went on to say that Mr Trudeau "is a very nice guy", before challenging him on how much Canada contributed financially to Nato. Mr Trump was scheduled to turn up with Nato General Secretary Jens Stoltenberg for a five-minute photocall on Monday morning inside the US ambassador's residence in London. It turned into an almost hour-long, frenzied, press conference, which the world leaders appeared to mock. Mr Johnson can be heard asking French President Emmanuel Macron: "Is that why you were late?" Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says: "He was late because he takes a 40-minute press conference off the top." Later in the conversation Mr Trudeau adds: "You just watched his team's jaws drop to the floor." It came after Mr Trump branded the French President's comments that Nato is "brain dead" as "very nasty", before the pair met on Tuesday at the US ambassador's residence in London. The leaders were hosted at Buckingham Palace by The Queen on Monday night and today were in Watford for behind-closed-doors talks. Mr Johnson closed the two-day summit with a press conference of his own, where he reiterated that the NHS was not for sale, dodged a question about Mr Trump's relationship with Prince Andrew and called the US an "invaluable ally" of the UK. 3:41PM Hot mic picks up Trump talking about scrapped press conference As we reported earlier, Donald Trump cancelled his second press conference. Hot mics appear to be the gift that just keeps giving at this Nato summit. Another one picked up the US President: Trump caught on hot mic talking about Trudeau and his scrapping of news conf per pool reporter @betsy_klein - "Oh, and then you know what they'll say. He didn't do a press conference. He didn't do a press conference. That was funny when I said the guy's two-faced, you know that."— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) December 4, 2019 3:37PM Trudeau admits he was referring to Trump's 'impromptu press conference' in video Justin Trudeau has admitted he was referring to Trump's "impromptu press conference" during an informal chat with world leaders. Trudeau says he was referring to Trump's 'impromptu press conference' during informal chat with world leaders that was captured on video. Says reference to 'jaws dropping' among members of president's team was about unscheduled announcement that US hosting next G7 at Camp David.— CBC News Alerts (@CBCAlerts) December 4, 2019 Earlier, Boris Johnson told gathered journalists he did not know what reporters were talking about when questioned on it. 2:37PM Johnson on the election: 'It's me or a Corbyn-Sturgeon coalition' The Prime Minister ended on his own terms - talking up the general election. He said the choice was simple - vote for him or vote for a Jeremy Corbyn-Nicola Sturgeon coalition, which would involve two referendums, one on Scottish independence and one on Brexit. "I might go further," he said. "There is a choice between those who want to strengthen Nato and those in the Labour opposition who actually want to destroy it, destroy Nato, this alliance that has kept us safe. "I want to strengthen MI5, that keeps us safe. Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party want to install a home secretary who wants to disband MI5. "I want longer sentences for violent criminals and to make sure that terrorists serve their full term, Mr Corbyn doesn't agree with that." Boris Johnson signed off by saying the only plan Corbyn has "apart from destroying Nato" is for two more referendums and leaving the British political landscape in "total disarray". 2:33PM 'NHS for sale' is nonsense, says Johnson The final question of the press conference was reserved for the NHS. The Prime Minister was asked if he would rule out putting the health service on the negotiating table. He said: "Oh boy. I thought everybody by now had rumbled this balony for the nonsense that it is. "I think I'll bring this press conference to a close now because we're staring to scrape the barrel." 2:31PM Boris Johnson dodges Prince Andrew-Donald Trump question Comments by the US President on Prince Andrew from yesterday, when Donald Trump said he did not know the Duke of York, were put to Boris Johnson. It was pointed out that the two men had been pictured together a number of times, once even playing golf together. Here are a couple of examples: Donald Trump and the Duke of York inside Westminster Abbey in June 2019 Credit: Chris Jackson Donald Trump, Melania and Prince Andrew pictured in Palm Beach in 2000 Credit: Davidoff/Getty The reporter asked Mr Johnson if he thought his US counterpart was an "amnesiac or a serial liar". The Prime Minister said: "Frankly, that's one of those good effort to drag in totally extraneous questions. "This is about strengthening the Nato alliance. "None of those issues came up in any of the sessions, or to any of my knowledge in any of the bi-lateral meetings that took place." 2:17PM Johnson doesn't rule out Huawei roll-out Boris Johnson was pressed about the Huawei roll-out. Asked if he had decided not to go ahead with Huawei, Mr Johnson said: "On Huawei and 5G. I don't want this country to be unnecessarily hostile to investment from overseas. "On the other hand, we cannot prejudice our vital national security interests, nor can we prejudice our ability to co-operate with other Five Eyes security partners, and that we will be how - that will be the key criterion that informs our decision about Huawei." 2:15PM 'Absolute nonsense,' says Trump on that now-infamous video Boris Johnson was asked about the now-infamous video. Sky News's Deborah Haynes asked the Prime Minister: "Do you not take Donald Trump seriously?" The response: "That's absolute nonsense. I don't know where that came from." He was later pressed on the video by another reporter, to which he said: "I'm sorry. I don't know what you're referring to." 2:12PM US is an 'invaluable ally,' says Johnson Asked if Donald Trump is good for Britain and the West, Boris Johnson made note of the American response to the Novichok poisoning in Salisbury. "I certainly think that the United States is the guarantor of, has been a massive contributor to Nato, has been for 70 years a pillar of stability for our collective security," he said. He said the US had stood "shoulder for shoulder" with the UK after the attempt on the life of former Russian military intelligence officer Sergei Skripal in Salisbury. Boris Johnson addressing the press conference Credit: REX "You may remember country after country stepped forward to expel Russian diplomats - Russian spies - in solidarity with the UK. And the United States actually expelled 60. "That was a fantastic testament, I think, to the trans-Atlantic alliance. "American stood shoulder to shoulder with us then, has done for decades and is an invaluable ally and continues to be so." 2:10PM Boris Johnson addressing journalists - watch live Asked to clarify his position on whether foreign fighters should be returned to the UK, Mr Johnson said: "As you know, one of the difficulties we have in taking these people back is that our legal systems make it very difficult for us to secure convictions. "And I go back to what I said earlier, people go out to break the law, to sort of fight in terrorist organisations, then they really have to take the consequences." Pushed again on whether he will allow Huawei to help build Britain's 5G network, Mr Johnson said: "Well, we're going to make a decision and we're going to make it based on, as I say, on the paramount importance of protecting our critical national infrastructure and also protecting our five-eyes relationships - and I don't think it's anything to do with the timing of the election." Asked whether China should be a strategic partner or an enemy, the Prime Minister added: "Well I certainly don't think the second thing (enemy), there was no support for that idea. "I think what people felt was that it was right that we should build a strategic partnership with China, but that we should be aware also of the challenges that China presents - particularly when it comes to areas of high technology, I think that would be a fairer characterisation of the discussion." He then refused to answer a question on whether President Trump is an "amnesiac or a serial liar" after he said he didn't know Prince Andrew despite evidence showing they played golf together. Mr Johnson said Nato leaders wanted to avoid any "misunderstandings" with Turkey over its plans following its incursion against the Kurds in northern Syria. Speaking at the close of the alliance leaders' 70th anniversary meeting in Watford, the Prime Minister acknowledged there were "great complexities" in the region. The Turkish offensive against the Kurds - seen by many in the West as key allies in the fight against Islamic State (IS) - has overshadowed the gathering after French President Emmanuel Macron suggested it showed Nato had suffered a "brain death". Mr Johnson said they recognised the "huge pressures" faced by Turkey in dealing with 4 million refugees from the conflict in Syria as well as the "terrorist threat" from the Kurdish PKK in Turkey. "What we were all trying to do is understand Turkey's plans for that stretch of northern Syria, what they want to do, how they see the future there and the way forward. "What we want to do is to avoid any misunderstandings between allies within Nato about Turkey's intentions and how that situation will develop." 1:54PM 'We'll go directly back to Washington,' Trump says as he rules out second press conference There will be no repeat of the mammoth press conference on day one of the Nato summit. Donald Trump said: "We'll go directly back [to Washington]. I think we've done plenty of press conferences... I think we've answered plenty of questions." And here's our sketch writer Michael Deacon's take on it... Has Trump just cancelled his big press conference today because the other boys made fun of his last one— Michael Deacon (@MichaelPDeacon) December 4, 2019 1:39PM Trump calls Justin Trudeau 'two-faced' Yesterday, it was France's Emmanuel Macron. Today, it's Canada's Justin Trudeau. Donald Trump called his Canadian counterpart "two-faced" when asked about the video in which Mr Trudeau said the US President's team's "jaw dropped to the floor" during an impromptu press conference. NATOLondon: US President Donald Trump: @JustinTrudeau is "two-faced. He's a nice guy, but the truth is I called him out on that fact he's paying only 2% and I guess he's not very happy about it." pic.twitter.com/upyG9aghMW— i24NEWS English (@i24NEWS_EN) December 4, 2019 Asked what he made of the video, Mr Trump said: "Well, he's two-faced. And honestly, with Justin Trudeau, he's a nice guy. I find him to be a very nice guy. But the truth is that "I called him out on the fact that he's not paying two per cent and I guess he's not very happy about it." 12:34PM Melania Trump serenaded with rendition of All I Want For Christmas Is You With the world leaders locked behind closed doors, their other halves were forced to entertain themselves on Wednesday afternoon. So, away from the gravity of the summit in Hertfordshire, Melania Trump visited a charity hub in the captial. She was serenaded with a rendition of Mariah Carey's festive classic All I Want For Christmas Is You as she dropped by a Salvation Army centre in east London. First Lady Melania Trump during a visit to the Salvation Army Clapton Centre Credit: Yui Mok/PA The US First Lady bobbed her head slightly as around 30 children from Baden Powell Primary School belted out the well-known Christmas song. Wearing a black and white houndstooth check coat over a black sheath dress, the wife of US President Donald Trump appeared to say "bravo" as she congratulated the ensemble. She also spent around 20 minutes helping the school children make Christmas wreaths, using sparkly pipe cleaners, pine cones and tinsel. Mrs Trump beamed throughout the visit, commending the Christmas hat-clad youngsters on their festivewear and chatting more generally about the festive season. US First Lady Melania Trump during a visit to the Salvation Army Clapton Centre in London Credit: Yui Mok/PA The First Lady also joined US Embassy Marines to put gifts in bags to help with the Salvation Army's annual present appeal for local families. She placed a white frisbee with her Be Best logo into one bag, and a football into another. Mrs Trump then handed out Be Best branded ornaments to children in the choir after they finished their performance, before leaving in her motorcade. The First Lady was accompanied to Clapton by Suzanne Johnson, wife of US ambassador to the UK Woody Johnson. 11:31AM Nato leaders will discuss rise of China, General Secretary reveals It has always been the elephant in the room, but now Jens Stoltenberg has made it public knowledge. NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg says for the first time member states will be addressing the rise of China and their investment in "defence capabilities". Follow the latest from the summit here: https://t.co/sH3NxloSV6pic.twitter.com/xIMhA7tTGp— Sky News (@SkyNews) December 4, 2019 What details, if any, we will get remains to be seen. 11:14AM An early contender for picture of the day Boris Johnson spent much of the day yesterday seemingly avoiding picture opportunities with Donald Trump. And this morning, a video emerged of him involved in a huddle seemingly mocking the US President's impromptu press conference. Credit: AFP Here is Mr Johnson and his Home Secretary Dominic Raab - captions welcomed please. 10:27AM Journalists are shut out of the Nato meeting And, with that, Natio General Secretary Jens Stoltenberg announces that is that for the gathered media. Waving his gavel in the air, he called time on the public section of the summit. Cameras were then cleared from the galleys and journalists filed out to leave the world leaders to discuss in private. 10:25AM British Prime Minister addresses gathered delegates Boris Johnson has said Britain is "rock solid" in its commitment to Nato as he addressed leaders at the military alliance's 70th anniversary summit in Watford. In opening remarks at the start of a meeting of the North Atlantic Council, the Prime Minister said: "I'm delighted to welcome everybody here to the United Kingdom to celebrate the 70th anniversary of Nato. "I do feel that our alliance is coming home because Britain was a founding member of Nato and it was here that Nato opened its first headquarters, of course, in Belgrave Square, shortly actually before moving to Paris." He went on: "70 years on, we are rock solid in our commitments to Nato and to the giant shield of solidarity that now protect 29 countries and nearly a billion people. "The fact that we live in peace today demonstrates the power of the simple proposition at the heart of this alliance: that for as long as we stand together, no-one can hope to defeat us, and therefore no-one will start a war." Mr Johnson continued: "History shows that peace cannot be taken for granted, and even as we celebrate this anniversary we must ensure that our deeds match our words. "The atrocity in London last Friday shows why we must work together to combat terrorism and the vital importance of Nato's missions to counter this threat. "For the UK's part, we spend over 2% of our GDP on defence, we are proud to be making the biggest contribution of any European ally to Nato's readiness initiative by offering an armoured brigade, two fighter squadrons and six warships - including the Royal Navy's new aircraft carriers. "As friends and allies, we must never shy away from discussing new realities - particularly Nato's response to emerging threats like hybrid warfare and disruptive technologies, including space and cyber. "At this council, we have the opportunity to strengthen the unity of purpose that has made Nato the greatest and most successful alliance in history, and to take the new steps that are profoundly necessary to ensure another 70 years of peace and security." 10:18AM Boris Johnson and Donald Trump shake hands Boris Johnson welcomed Donald Trump onto the stage in Watford. Donald Trump and Boris Johnson shake hands Credit: Steve Parsons/PA The world leaders will talk today behind closed doors. Watch it here: Donald Trump joins Boris Johnson on stage at the start of the Nato summit in Hertfordshirehttps://t.co/OAKmLQ4Dhipic.twitter.com/Uijvg7Xioh— BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) December 4, 2019 10:03AM Turkey defence differences can be ironed out, Nato General Secretary says Nato secretary general Jens Stoltenberg has said he is confident differences with Turkey over a new alliance defence plan to protect the Baltic states and Poland can be resolved. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has threatened to block the plan after criticism of Turkey's incursion against the Kurds in northern Syria. But arriving for a meeting of alliance leaders near Watford, Mr Stoltenberg said: "I am confident that we will find a solution to the updating of the revised defence plan." He said Nato leaders would for the first time discuss the rise of China, which was now the world's second biggest spender on defence. "This provides opportunities and also challenges," he said. 10:01AM Barry Gardiner suggests Nato has not been on the right side of history Touching on the British political landscape, shadow international development secretary Barry Gardiner has warned against interventions in foreign conflicts by saying "you don't start bombing before you started thinking". You can stay on top of the general election latest news in our politics liveblog here. Speaking to BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Mr Gardiner insisted Labour is "committed to Nato," when asked if the party's leader Jeremy Corbyn supported the alliance. Asked to confirm Mr Corbyn's own views, Mr Gardiner added: "You want to personalise things, I want to talk about policy, I want to talk about what's in our manifesto." "If you look at the Iraq war, who was on the right side of history in that? Jeremy Corbyn was"@BarryGardiner says the Labour leader was right to oppose the Iraq invasion - but that he is committed to NATOr4today | https://t.co/i8Vw2hkZtt | @JustinOnWebpic.twitter.com/c4M8LGLezw— BBC Radio 4 Today (@BBCr4today) December 4, 2019 He continued: "The way you defend this country is by ensuring that you don't go on foreign wars, you don't start bombing before you started thinking. "Consistently, if you look at the Iraq war, who was on the right side of history about that? Jeremy Corbyn was, not the president at the time, and indeed not the Labour Party at the time under Tony Blair. "But all of Parliament went into that, Jeremy Corbyn did not." 9:55AM Boris Johnson plays down Nato divisions Boris Johnson has played down divisions in Nato amid differences over Turkey's incursion against the Kurds in northern Syria. Arriving for the 70th anniversary meeting of Nato leaders near Watford, Mr Johnson said Britain's commitment to the alliance remained "rock solid". "Clearly it is very important that the alliance stays together, but there is far, far more that unites us than divides us," he said. Mr Johnson said he had a "very good" bilateral meeting with US President Donald Trump on Tuesday evening. "We discussed the future of Nato, we discussed what is going on in Syria and various other matters," he said. 9:43AM Procession of world leaders welcomed to the stage in Watford Anyone who has had to endure a university graduation ceremony might be getting flashbacks. World leaders, one by one, are being welcomed to the stage. They shake hands with Boris Johnson, shake hands with Nato General Secretary Jens Stoltenberg, pose for a photograph, and make their way off stage. So while this goes on, let's catch up with the news lines to come out overnight and this morning. 9:36AM Donald Trump arrives in Watford for day two of Nato summit The US President has landed. US President Donald Trump has arrived at a NATO summit in Hertfordshire. The meeting is expected to consider new threats, including in the areas of cyber and space, and has been notable for a few frosty meetings between leaders. Latest here: https://t.co/ymH7LTKmbPpic.twitter.com/MdiUEKRo2Y— Sky News (@SkyNews) December 4, 2019 Flying in on board Marine One - the presidential helicopter - he landed just before 9.30am. 9:20AM Nato summit day one catch-up If you missed yesterday's events, well, you missed a lot. You can catch up with the blow-by-blow account here. But, in short: World leaders were hosted at Buckingham Palace event by the Queen Prince Andrew 'a very tough story', Donald Trump said Trump on Corbyn: 'I know nothing about him, honestly' US wants 'nothing to do' with NHS, the President insisted 'We'd be in World War Three if it weren't for me,' Trump said Macron's 'Nato is brain dead' comments were 'very disrespectful', US President said
|
| Albania PM optimistic of world support on quake recovery Posted: 04 Dec 2019 07:44 AM PST  Albania's prime minister said Wednesday he was pleased with the international support he secured at a NATO summit on dealing with the aftermath of a 6.4-magnitude earthquake that killed 51 people and injured more than 3,000 others. Edi Rama said before leaving the NATO summit in London that he had positive meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump and other leaders from Europe and Canada and that he received a positive reaction to his aspiration to hold an international donors' conference. The European Union and the United Nations are coordinating international efforts, including those from the United States, to assist Albania after the earthquake that affected more than half of the country's 2.8 million population.
|
| Who Will Follow Putin? Posted: 04 Dec 2019 07:41 AM PST  There is no credible successor to Vladimir Putin.
|
| Iran leader calls for ‘Islamic mercy’ after bloody crackdown Posted: 04 Dec 2019 07:15 AM PST  Iran's supreme leader called Wednesday for those detained in recent gasoline price protests to be treated with "Islamic mercy" even after authorities acknowledged government forces shot and killed demonstrators nationwide in unrest that reportedly killed over 200 people. The comments by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has final say over all state matters in the Islamic Republic, appear to signal how much the mid-November protests shook the pillars of power in the theocracy. Amnesty International believes at least 208 people were killed in the protests and security force crackdown that followed.
|
| America's shameful abuse of Ukraine Posted: 04 Dec 2019 06:48 AM PST ![America's shameful abuse of Ukraine]( "America's shameful abuse of Ukraine") American media coverage of the Trump-Ukraine scandal has focused primarily on the U.S. implications, for obvious reasons. The mainstream press is naturally most concerned with American affairs, has little understanding of foreign countries (especially because tight budgets have required many publications to cut back or close their overseas bureaus), and is in many cases downright chauvinist.Yet it is worth considering how Trump's cynical manipulation of Ukraine is only the capstone of decades of maltreatment the country has endured, both from Western powers and elsewhere. If any country deserved lenient, generous treatment it is this one, yet it has been abused like a rented mule. It is shameful.It's hard to imagine a country whose last century of history has been harder than Ukraine's. First, it was the site of major conflict in World War I, which only got worse during the ensuing Russian Civil War. An independent Ukrainian Republic existed briefly, but was conquered by the Bolsheviks who established a Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic puppet state. Only a few years later, Stalin's ruthless effort to collectivize agriculture created a gigantic famine that killed roughly 3.5 million Ukrainian civilians. His secret police murdered approximately 130,000 more during the Great Purge of the late '30s, including nearly the entire communist leadership of the region.Just a few years after that, Ukraine was conquered and occupied by Nazi Germany, where they carried out much of the Holocaust. Then it was re-conquered by the Soviet Red Army -- which while surely an improvement from Nazi occupation, still required some of the most brutal fighting of any war in history. Perhaps seven million died during the conflict, including about a million and a half Jews at Nazi hands.Now, Ukraine did relatively well under subsequent Soviet rule, becoming a center of heavy industry and military research. But the side effects of communist dictatorship were still sometimes devastating -- especially the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, which contaminated a big chunk of northern Ukraine and required an entire city of 50,000 be abandoned. As the USSR became progressively more sclerotic and dysfunctional, the Ukrainian economy stagnated.The collapse of the Soviet Union led to Ukrainian independence as a democratic republic, and a glimmering of hope that the country might finally get a fresh start and start climbing up the development ladder. But it was not to be. The rickety Soviet-style economy had severe structural problems, and crash privatization recommended by Western economic advisers only made things worse. Vast wealth was scooped up by a new oligarch class, while the broader economy suffered a shattering crisis of recession and hyperinflation, only returning to positive growth in 2000.Extreme inequality combined with a history of dictatorship meant rampant corruption, and Ukrainian politics became marked by embezzling strongmen and assassination attempts.All this got little attention from Western powers, who kept pushing their institutional boundaries eastward with little consideration of what it would actually require to bring the post-communist countries into the fold. The United States kept mindlessly advancing NATO -- an organization dedicated to countering a country that no longer existed -- further and further into the former Eastern Bloc, while the European Union did much the same. The supposed objective was to unify Europe as a prosperous, unified continent. But the further Western institutions went into former Soviet territory, the worse the results were.All this infuriated Russia, setting the stage for yet another disastrous diplomatic and economic crisis. Ukraine grew steadily from 2000 to 2008, but its economy was once again crushed by the global financial crisis, suffering a Great Depression-scale hit to output. In particular, it had significant debt denominated in foreign currencies it did not control. It was only saved from default by a loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 2008 -- that came with the usual austerity requirements attached, which only further weakened the economy.As historian Adam Tooze writes in his book Crashed, by 2013 the European Union was in advanced discussions with Ukrainian leadership about joining up. Yet Ukraine's economy was still in dire straits, and it would require major assistance to make a real recovery -- while Russia, who accounted for 26 percent of Ukrainian exports, threatened sanctions if they signed the agreement.If Western powers -- above all the United States, which has by far the greatest influence over the IMF -- had taken their previous commitments seriously, they would have offered Ukraine a gigantic reconstruction and redevelopment package to get their economy back on its feet and offset whatever damage Russian sanctions might have caused.Instead, the E.U. Association Agreement came with a pitifully meager IMF loan -- most of which was to be used to repay the 2008 loan. The E.U. offered only an additional 610 million euros. As Tooze notes, "In exchange the IMF demanded big budget cuts, a 40 percent increase in natural gas bills and a 25 percent currency devaluation." It would have been political suicide to accept. "There were Ukrainian oligarchs with personal fortunes larger than this," he writes.Russian President Vladimir Putin pounced, offering a $15 billion loan contingent on joining his Eurasian Customs Union. Then-President Victor Yanukovych -- a hugely corrupt politician who was nevertheless between a rock and a hard place -- accepted. But this also caused a massive political uprising, fueled behind the scenes by American pressure. "We've got to do something to make it stick together," then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt was surveilled telling the then-undersecretary for European and Eurasian affairs, "because you can be pretty sure that if it does start to gain altitude the Russians will be working behind the scenes to torpedo it." A few months into 2014, Yanukovych fled to Russia, and was replaced by a pro-Western coalition who duly signed the onerous E.U. agreement.In response, Putin seized Ukraine's Crimea region, and lent support and arms to a separatist movement in eastern Ukraine. E.U. membership had to be put on ice due to the active conflict. The United States responded with its own arms and support -- the aid that President Trump used to try to blackmail the new Ukrainian president, former comedian Volodymyr Zelensky, into ginning up a fake investigation into the Biden family.In sum, after decades of gruesome suffering, Ukraine has been cynically manipulated by bungling American imperialists to stoke a pointless and counterproductive conflict with Russia -- providing enough commitment and resources to keep the fighting going, but never enough to win. The result is yet another grinding frozen conflict with little prospect of resolution. Some 13,000 Ukrainians have died in the war, and the economy has once again been badly damaged. The only change with a new U.S. president has been an attempt to strong-arm the country into colluding in a cheap political trick.Given that Western powers patently lack either the desire or the ability to make Ukraine into France overnight, it is an appalling crime to use that beleaguered country to repeatedly poke Vladimir Putin in the eye. It is not Americans who suffer the backlash. One feels terribly for President Zelesnky, probably the most decent president Ukraine has ever had, who by all accounts only wants to help his country get back up on its one remaining limb. "I would never want Ukraine to be a piece on the map, on the chess board of big global players, so that someone could toss us around, use us as cover, as part of some bargain," he said in a recent interview with Time. "As for the United States, I would really want -- and we feel this, it's true -- for them to help us, to understand us, to see that we are a player in our own right, that they cannot make deals about us with anyone behind our backs."Russia is of course every bit as guilty as the U.S. in stoking this war. Yet unlike America, Ukraine is right on its border -- and Putin regards NATO and the E.U., with considerable justification, as plotting to encircle and isolate Russia. He clearly has the power to fight back if he wishes. So as David Klion argues in The Nation, there is simply no alternative to diplomatic negotiation to end the conflict and reach some kind of detente which allows some room for Russian interest, perhaps with Ukraine as a sort of peaceful buffer state. If America wishes to combat Putin's influence, it can do that by fixing the broken U.S. tax system that allows Russian oligarchs to hide billions in ill-gotten wealth, and by pursuing a climate deal to undermine their natural gas profits -- ideally pushing Russia to decarbonize its economy, and to stop meddling in foreign elections.But at the very least we can stop treating Ukraine like a cheap toy in the imperialist fantasies of the D.C. Blob.More stories from theweek.com Trump's pathological obsession with being laughed at The most important day of the impeachment inquiry Jerry Falwell Jr.'s false gospel of memes
|
| Putin says U.S. ramping up its military forces for space Posted: 04 Dec 2019 06:40 AM PST ![Putin says U.S. ramping up its military forces for space]( "Putin says U.S. ramping up its military forces for space") Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that the United States was rapidly developing its military forces for potential operations in space and that Washington openly viewed space as a potential theatre of war. Putin, who was speaking in the Black Sea city of Sochi in southern Russia, said that Moscow categorically opposed the militarisation of space but that the U.S. moves meant Russia had to further develop its own space sector.
|
| Merkel and Macron Try to Make Up With a Dinner at The Savoy Posted: 04 Dec 2019 06:31 AM PST ![Merkel and Macron Try to Make Up With a Dinner at The Savoy]( "Merkel and Macron Try to Make Up With a Dinner at The Savoy") (Bloomberg) -- Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel needed to have a talk.The French and German leaders sat down for two hours at the Savoy hotel in London to patch things up. Chancellor Merkel initiated the Tuesday dinner, which was at celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay's restaurant.With only their top diplomats sitting in at the table, they sought to end weeks of growing tension and disagreement, mainly over how they handle sensitive policy issues, like Macron's blockbuster interview in the Economist last month that questioned the state of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and if Russia should be brought closer into the European fold, according to a French official.The long talk was fruitful, said the official, who asked not to be identified, citing Elysee Palace rules. Still, Macron is Macron, and will continue with his disruptive style.And while Germany may not be comfortable with the French leader's style, it agrees with his overall vision of redefining the strategic pillars of NATO and the position of Russia, the official said.European DisconnectMerkel's spokesman confirmed that the chancellery had a discussion over dinner late Tuesday, but declined to say whether they addressed differences or coordinated their position on NATO or Russia.The meeting comes at a significant time for France and Germany, the core economies driving the European Union. Merkel's coalition government is hanging on by a thread, calling into question how much power she still wields both at home and within the EU. Macron has taken the moment to seize greater leadership in the bloc, and has pushed forward with his effort to accelerate reforms on the continent.The two nations agree on many issues, including tightening strategic and industrial treaties. But they have also become disconnected over the pace of Macron's reform efforts, and Merkel has become irked by the French leader's style.Merkel and Macron discussed their relations, but also matters of foreign policy, including the landmark arms-control pact, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which expired earlier this year, and the upcoming Dec. 9 Paris meeting on Ukraine. The official declined to detail a strategy that the two leaders prepared for that meeting.\--With assistance from Patrick Donahue.To contact the reporter on this story: Helene Fouquet in Paris at hfouquet1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Rosalind Mathieson at rmathieson3@bloomberg.net, ;Ben Sills at bsills@bloomberg.net, Richard Bravo, Andrew AtkinsonFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
|
| Iran protests are sign of real popular dissatisfaction - UK PM Johnson Posted: 04 Dec 2019 06:18 AM PST ![Iran protests are sign of real popular dissatisfaction - UK PM Johnson]( "Iran protests are sign of real popular dissatisfaction - UK PM Johnson") Protests in Iran are a sign of "real popular dissatisfaction" with the country's leaders, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Wednesday. Disturbances in Iran began in mid-November over gasoline price hikes but quickly turned political, with demonstrators demanding the removal of the country's leaders in the bloodiest anti-government protests since the 1979 Islamic revolution. "My own feeling is that this is not just about fuel prices, this is a sign of real popular dissatisfaction with the regime and frankly I am by no means surprised," Johnson told reporters at a news conference following a NATO summit.
|
| Florida Republican condemned for suggesting Ilhan Omar be executed for treason Posted: 04 Dec 2019 06:17 AM PST  George Buck, who is running for Congress, is the second Republican to reference the hanging of the congresswomanA Florida Republican with national party ties has been condemned after becoming the latest political opponent of the Minnesota congresswoman Ilhan Omar to suggest that the Minnesota representative be put to death.A fundraising letter sent by George Buck, a Republican running for Congress, suggests that Omar, a Democrat, be executed for treason. "We should hang these traitors where they stand," the email reads.According to the Tampa Bay Times, Buck initially blamed the email on an errant staff member before seemingly backtracking and sending the newspaper a statement that referenced the death penalty for treason."Anyone who commits treason against the United States should be tried to the full extent of the law," said Buck, who is a member of the Young Guns program run by the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC).On Wednesday the NRCC and Kevin McCarthy, Republican House minority leader, removed Buck from the program in the wake of his comments.Buck is the second Republican to reference the hanging of Omar, a Somali-born Muslim, in the past week. A campaign account for Danielle Stella, a pro-Trump Republican candidate for Congress, was banned from Twitter after suggesting Omar be hanged, along with a depiction of a stick figure hanging from the gallows.Both Buck and Stella have based their accusations of treason on an unverified report that Omar is an asset of Qatar who has passed sensitive information on to Iran. There has been no evidence put forward to support this theory and has not been backed by any US government assessment.Omar is a frequent critic of Donald Trump, as well as the human rights records of both Israel and Saudi Arabia. Trump has repeatedly accused his critics of being guilty of treason and said Omar and other political opponents in Congress who are women of colour should be "sent back" to the "crime infested places from which they came" despite their either being born in the US or gaining citizenship and now holding national office."The fact that those who make these violent threats very publicly without hesitation reaffirms how much white supremacy has spread within the @NRCC," tweeted Rashida Tlaib, a Michigan Democrat and Omar ally who has also been targeted by Trump. "They are raising money on a call to hang a Black Muslim member of Congress and too many are silent."> The fact that those who make these violent threats very publicly without hesitation reaffirms just how much white supremacy has spread within the @NRCC. They are raising money on a call to hang a Black Muslim member of Congress and too many are silent. @IlhanMN https://t.co/VR92QvWh2z> > — Rashida Tlaib (@RashidaTlaib) December 4, 2019Steve Scalise, the House Republican whip, also criticised Buck. "There's no place for inciting violence in politics," Scalise said in a statement. "Instead of doubling down on these disgraceful comments, the candidate ought to apologize unequivocally and denounce these unacceptable statements."Buck is one of several Republicans vying to take Florida's 13th congressional district, which is centered on the city of St Petersburg. The incumbent in Charlie Crist, a Democrat and former Florida governor.
|
| Japanese aid 'hero' shot dead in eastern Afghanistan after four decades of dedication Posted: 04 Dec 2019 06:13 AM PST  When the Japanese humanitarian Dr Tetsu Nakamura was awarded Asia's equivalent of the Nobel prize for his aid to Afghanistan and Pakistan, he vowed to continue sharing "life's joys and sorrows with the local people". After four decades of devotion which seen him recently awarded honorary Afghan citizenship, he was yesterday shot dead in a killing triggering an outpouring of grief from his adoptive country, with many declaring him a hero. The 73-year-old head of a Japanese aid charity was among six people killed when their vehicle was ambushed by unknown gunmen in the eastern border province of Nangarhar. The attack was the latest killing of aid workers in a country where attacks on humanitarians are increasingly common as the conflict worsens and the civilian death toll mounts. "We feel ashamed, Dr Nakamura. You have dedicated your life for Afghanistan, but we were not able to protect you," said Rahmatullah Nabil, a former head of the Afghan spy agency. Tetsu Nakamura died alongside five colleagues when their vehicle was shot up by motorbike-riding gunmen in Jalalabad Credit: Reuters Dr Nakamura led Peace Japan Medical Services which had been involved in rebuilding Afghan irrigation and agriculture in the east of the country. "I am shocked that he had to die in this way," Japan's prime minister, Shinzo Abe, told a news conference in Tokyo. "He risked his life in a dangerous environment to do various work, and the people of Afghanistan were very grateful to him," he said. Dr Nakamura had worked first in Pakistan and then in Afghanistan since the early 1980s. Originally from Fukuoka in Japan, he practised medicine in his homeland, but as a young doctor was drawn to mountaineering in the rugged borderlands of Pakistan and Afghanistan. There he found people in dire medical need and beyond the reach of modern treatment. He quickly volunteered and at first treated leprosy sufferers in a Peshawar hospital and later set up clinics treating those affected by the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. He latterly turned his attention to improving irrigation and water supplies. In 2003, he was awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Award, widely considered to be the Asian equivalent of the Nobel peace prize. His citation praised his "his passionate commitment to ease the pain of war, disease, and calamity among refugees and the mountain poor". Zia Shinwari a colleague from Jalalabad, told the Telegraph Dr Nakamura had fallen in love with the country. "His whole life was to bring smiles to the faces of hopeless and helpless Afghans. He rehabilitated thousands of acres of agricultural land. Whenever he visited those lands he felt so proud and satisfied." The United Nations called the killing "a senseless act of violence against a man who dedicated much of his life to helping most vulnerable Afghans". The Afghan government called it a "heinous act and a cowardly attack on one of Afghanistan's greatest friends." There was no immediate claim of responsibility. The Taliban denied any involvement. Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef a former Taliban official, said Dr Nakamura's killing was "an effort to push back progress in Afghanistan". Nangarhar has been a stronghold of the Afghan branch of Islamic State group. Afghan intelligence officers, who blame Pakistan for the Taliban-led insurgency, suggested Dr Nakamura may have been a victim of cross-border water tensions for his irrigation schemes along the Kunar river, but gave no evidence for their accusations. Protect yourself and your family by learning more about Global Health Security
|
| Trump Revives Threat of Force Against North Korea’s ‘Rocket Man’ Posted: 04 Dec 2019 05:47 AM PST  (Bloomberg) -- U.S. President Donald Trump revived both his "Rocket Man" nickname for Kim Jong Un and the threat of military force against North Korea, in the latest sign of rising tensions ahead of Pyongyang's year-end deadline.Trump revisited the name he once used to mock Kim just hours after North Korea said it was preparing a "Christmas gift" for the U.S. if the administration failed to meet its demands by year-end for concessions in nuclear talks. Kim has repeatedly warned in recent months he could take a "new path" in relations with the U.S., while resuming ballistic missile launches."He definitely likes sending rockets up, doesn't he? That's why I call him 'Rocket Man,'" Trump said Tuesday during a NATO summit in the U.K., adding: "We have the most powerful military we've ever had, and we're by far the most powerful country in the world. And, hopefully, we don't have to use it, but if we do, we'll use it. If we have to, we'll do it."Hours later, North Korea's state media said Kim was "displeased" to hear Trump's threat about the possibility of using military force against the country.The Korean Central News Agency released a statement on Wednesday from North Korea's army chief, Pak Jong Chon, who said "the use of armed forces is not the privilege of the U.S. only," warning that Pyongyang will take "prompt corresponding actions at any level" should the U.S. initiate military action.Despite resuming weapons tests, Kim has refrained from detonating nuclear bombs or launching missiles capable of carrying them to the U.S. while pursuing unprecedented talks with Trump. North Korea's deadline puts one of Trump's biggest foreign policy achievements on the line just as he gears up for re-election.Any shift by Kim could come as soon as the North Korean leader's annual New Year's address, which he has previously used to ratchet tensions up and down. The ruling Workers' Party announced a rare meeting in Pyongyang later this month "to discuss and decide on crucial issues" due to the "changed situation at home and abroad."Pyongyang's propaganda machine has kicked into high gear in recent months to show Kim as a strong leader. Earlier on Wednesday, the Korean Central News Agency published pictures of him riding a white horse through the snow on Mt. Paektu -- a sacred site where North Korea says Kim's grandfather and state founder, Kim Il Sung, led guerrillas against the Japanese and his father, Kim Jong Il, was born.State media praised Kim Jong Un in rhetorical flourishes about the mountain visit -- that included his wife, top cadres and military brass -- saying he rode a steed "through knee-high virgin snow," connecting himself to "the source of the lifeline of the revolution and inexhaustible patriotism."While Trump and Kim have held three face-to-face meetings and lavished each other with praise over the past two years, they've achieved little beyond a vague promise to "work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula." North Korea has continued to expand a nuclear weapons program that it sees as a vital deterrent against the threat of American invasion.During their detente, Trump and Kim have held back from the threats and personal insults they flung at each other in 2017 as North Korea conducted a series of weapons tests. The president notably used the "Rocket Man" moniker in September of that year while threatening to "totally destroy North Korea" during a speech to the United Nations. North Korea has referred to Trump as a "dotard."Kim has balked at U.S. demands for the dismantlement of his weapons program while Trump has so far rejected North Korea's calls for greater sanction relief. The most recent working-level talks between the two sides in October broke down, with North Korea's envoy accusing the American side of arriving "empty-handed."Trump's current point man for North Korea, Stephen Biegun, will go to Seoul later this month in his first visit to the South Korea capital since the working-level talks with North Korea broke down, the Yonhap News Agency reported, citing an unidentified official at South Korea's foreign ministry.Although Kim hasn't tested an intercontinental ballistic missile in more than two years, he has reminded the region of his growing military threat with tests of shorter-range missiles, including another volley last week. North Korea responded to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's complaints about the launches with a harshly worded commentary, saying that he "may see what a real ballistic missile is in the not distant future and under his nose."On Tuesday, Trump also highlighted a key source of friction between the U.S. and its South Korean allies: the president's demands for more military funding. American negotiators walked out of cost-sharing talks in Seoul last month, after South Korea rejected the administration's demands for as much as a five-fold increase to the approximately $1 billion it currently pays.Trump said those talks had make progress, but it wasn't immediately clear whether he was talking about an agreement for the current year or the period ahead."Last year, I asked them to pay more and they agreed," Trump said. "And nobody knows this -- I'll say it now, I think, for the first time -- but they agreed to pay approximately $500 million a year or more for protection."(Updates with North Korean leader's comments from fourth paragraph)To contact the reporter on this story: Jihye Lee in Seoul at jlee2352@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Brendan Scott at bscott66@bloomberg.net, ;Jon Herskovitz at jherskovitz@bloomberg.net, Chris Kay, Colin KeatingeFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
|
| The U.K. election from hell Posted: 04 Dec 2019 05:29 AM PST ![The U.K. election from hell]( "The U.K. election from hell") Whether you're pro- or anti-Brexit, there's no obvious least worst way to vote.
|
| A Mysterious '-1' and Other Call Records Show How Giuliani Pressured Ukraine Posted: 04 Dec 2019 05:28 AM PST  WASHINGTON -- In the two days before President Donald Trump forced out the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine in April, his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani was on the phone with the White House more than a dozen times.Phone records cited in the impeachment report released Tuesday by the House Intelligence Committee illustrate the sprawling reach of Giuliani's campaign first to remove the ambassador, Marie Yovanovitch, then to force Ukraine's new government to announce criminal investigations for Trump's political gain.That effort accelerated through the spring and summer into a full-court press to force Ukraine's new president to accede to Trump's wishes or risk losing $391 million in military assistance desperately needed to hold off Russian-led forces waging a separatist war in eastern Ukraine.From March 26 to Aug. 8, as he developed an irregular foreign policy channel that eventually sidelined both National Security Council and State Department aides, Giuliani -- who is not a government employee -- was in touch with top-ranking officials, the newly revealed call records suggested.He reached out to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo; the national security adviser at the time, John Bolton; Rep. Devin Nunes, the top Republican on the Intelligence Committee itself; midlevel White House officials; the Fox News host Sean Hannity; a conservative columnist; an associate who has been charged in a scheme related to Yovanovitch's ouster; and the owner of a mysterious number, "-1."Investigators are trying to determine whether the unidentified phone number belongs to Trump, said Rep. Adam B. Schiff, D-Calif., who leads the House Intelligence Committee. If so, the phone calls with Giuliani could be further evidence of the president's direct involvement in the Ukraine affair.The report gave no indication of what conversations took place or how investigators obtained the telephone records, which were apparently produced in response to subpoenas to AT&T and Verizon. Nonetheless, the timing and volume of the calls buttressed testimony by witnesses who portrayed Giuliani at the center of a shadow foreign policy that dismayed and baffled many in the administration.The call records showed "considerable coordination among the parties, including the White House" to falsely portray Yovanovitch as disloyal to the president and to manipulate administration policy for his personal benefit, Schiff told reporters.The report detailed a game of phone tag between the -1 phone number and Giuliani on Aug. 8. That same week, Giuliani was vigorously pressing State Department officials to persuade President Volodymyr Zelenskiy of Ukraine to publicly announce investigations into the Biden family and whether Ukraine meddled in the 2016 election.Giuliani missed calls from -1 on Aug. 8 to two of his cellphones. Giuliani then called the White House switchboard and the White House Situation Room, before connecting with -1.Circumstantial evidence shows that some of the -1 calls involved Trump, Schiff said, adding that his committee was working "to find out definitively."House investigators suspect that the number may belong to Trump in part because of phone records used as evidence in the criminal case against Roger Stone, a longtime friend and former campaign adviser who was convicted last month of seven felonies, including lying to Congress. Stone, who talked directly to Trump, received a call from a number listed only as -1, the records from his trial show.The phone records also detail at least half a dozen calls between Giuliani and a number associated with the White House's Office of Management and Budget. At the president's request, beginning in early July -- if not sooner -- that office froze $391 million in military assistance, congressional witnesses testified.Giuliani insisted Tuesday that he had nothing to do with withholding funding for Ukraine, and any conversations he had with the budget office involved other matters. "I never discussed military assistance," he said. "I am expert on so many things it could have been some very esoteric subject."Giuliani's efforts in Ukraine are under intense scrutiny by federal prosecutors as well as congressional investigators. Prosecutors in New York are looking into whether he violated foreign lobbying laws in trying to oust the U.S. ambassador and also scrutinizing any financial dealings he might have pursued with Ukrainian officials. Two of his associates -- including one whose records were also in the House report, Lev Parnas -- have been indicted on charges of violating campaign finance laws and other infractions.State Department phone records cited in the House report show Giuliani and Pompeo spoke at least twice in late March. In an interview in late November, Giuliani said he spoke to Pompeo to give him the results of his Ukraine research, including the role he believes that Ukrainians played trying to disrupt Trump's 2016 election campaign.At the time, Pompeo was under pressure from both Giuliani and the White House to remove Yovanovitch from her post. A month later, she was recalled to Washington, even though multiple high-ranking State Department officials testified that she had done nothing wrong.The records of Giuliani's calls also suggest that Nunes may have played a bigger role than was previously known in Giuliani's efforts to manipulate the administration's policy toward Ukraine. Nunes was in contact with both Giuliani and Parnas, the associate of Giuliani who helped the former New York mayor come up with negative information to further his strategy on Ukraine.In a Fox News interview Tuesday night, Nunes said that while he did not recall talking with Parnas, he might well have. "I remember that name now because he has been indicted," he said, adding, "It seems very unlikely that I would be taking calls from random people."On April 10, the records show, Giuliani and Nunes traded short calls before Giuliani reached Nunes and the two spoke for about 3 minutes.While the subject of their conversation is not known, they were most likely speaking about Ukraine, the report suggested. In the days beforehand, Giuliani said on Fox News that Ukraine had improperly interfered in the 2016 election and posted on Twitter citing criticism of Yovanovitch and accusing Ukrainian officials of interfering in U.S. politics.During the impeachment hearings, Nunes led the defense of Trump, repeatedly raising questions about Ukraine's role in the 2016 election and urging an investigation into Hunter Biden, the younger son of former Vice President Joe Biden, who was hired onto the board of a Ukrainian gas company.At a news conference Tuesday, Schiff raised questions about Nunes' role. "It is, I think, deeply concerning that at a time when the president of the United States was using the power of his office to dig up dirt on a political rival, that there may be evidence that there were members of Congress complicit in that activity," Schiff said.Nunes ignored questions about the call records in the Capitol, and his spokesman did not respond to requests for comment. But Republican leaders backed him Tuesday. "Devin Nunes has a right to talk to anybody," Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California, the top Republican in the House, told reporters.Giuliani also spoke with current and former members of Nunes' staff, including Kashyap Patel, who left Nunes' office in February and joined the National Security Council staff to work on issues involving the United Nations and other international organizations. The two men had a 25-minute call on May 10, according to the records, despite the fact that Bolton, then the national security adviser, had said that no one in his office should be talking to Giuliani, according to congressional testimony.Patel had no formal responsibility for Ukraine policy, and Fiona Hill, then a senior aide to Bolton, had raised questions about whether he was straying from his official portfolio. She asked Charles Kupperman, then Bolton's top deputy, in late May whether Patel had assumed a role in Ukraine matters but received no answer, according to the impeachment report.After The New York Times published an article in October about Hill's testimony, Patel filed a defamation lawsuit against the news organization. In that lawsuit, Patel denied he "played a role in shadow foreign policy" aimed at pushing Ukraine to pursue investigations sought by Trump.An NSC spokesman declined to comment when asked about Giuliani's phone call with Patel.This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2019 The New York Times Company
|
| Who Needs NATO? Posted: 04 Dec 2019 05:20 AM PST  ,PARIS—Just at the moment members of the House of Representatives were closing in on Richard Nixon like hounds in pursuit of a fox, he decided to run for cover in Europe. That summer of 1974, as he faced possible impeachment, Nixon wanted to remind the world and his countrymen that he was a true—maybe indispensable—statesman. And with the advice and consent of Henry Kissinger, he did that fairly well. Among his goals on that trip: to reassure Europe about America's commitment to the North Atlantic Alliance. But if the mission to NATO succeeded, the flight from impeachment did not. Six weeks after Nixon's trip, rather than face the indictment of Congress and put the nation through the ordeal of a Senate trial, Nixon resigned, which may have been his most statesmanlike act of all.Now we have another president with the hounds of the House hot on his heels, and another visit with NATO leaders. But try as Donald Trump might, when it comes to statesmanship he can't begin to fill Richard Nixon's shoes. (It's also highly unlikely he'll take the gentleman's way out of impeachment by resigning.)Trump Grandstands at NATO Summit Nobody WantedOn Tuesday, Trump reduced the eve of an already truncated NATO meeting in London to what seemed a contentious gabfest. Through a total of two long hours of photo ops with the secretary general of NATO, the president of France, and the prime minister of Canada, Trump free-associated cranky ideas about world affairs. Among them, his statement that the tariff war with China might carry on until after he is re-elected. That sent markets plummeting. An open mic video at Buckingham Palace later in the day had Canadian Premier Justin Trudeau snarking about the Trumpian digressions, to which the U.S. president responded by calling Trudeau "two-faced." But in a contentious exchange with French President Emmanuel Macron, widely noted more for its tone than substance, the two of them touched on something fundamental.The question before NATO in 2019, as indeed it was in 1974 and has been for much of the organization's history, is about as basic as it could be: What's NATO for? Or, put another way: Who needs it?Many times in the past, Donald Trump has called NATO "obsolete," and despite his platitudes Tuesday, he probably still believes that. His former National Security Adviser John Bolton reportedly said last month that Trump might pull out of the organization altogether if elected to a second term. Macron, meanwhile, went one step further when he talked about the "brain death" of NATO in an interview that The Economist published last month. (Trump took that personally, it seems, leading to his acerbic tone.)They're both right, in fact. NATO as we've known it is obsolete; NATO as it stands with Trump as president of its greatest power is, yes, brain dead.Macron put his finger on it after the formal meeting on Wednesday. "Who is the enemy?" he asked.When the alliance was first established 70 years ago, the question of purpose seemed relatively simple. As famously articulated by General Lord Ismay, NATO's first secretary general: It would "keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down."At the time, Europe was devastated by World War II and the Soviet Union loomed large over the continent. Joseph Stalin was consolidating control over Eastern Europe, including East Germany, and he was building a nuclear arsenal. If he was to be stopped from pushing his Iron Curtain all the way to the Atlantic, an alliance with the still-prosperous and hugely well-armed United States was an obvious solution, and Washington, flexing its muscles as the world's first superpower, was ready to shoulder the burden. At the same time, none of the nations that defeated the Nazis wanted to see Germany re-emerge as a powerful military force, even as a deterrent to Moscow.But time and realpolitik soon eroded the simple formula put forth by Ismay. Currents of isolationism were always strong in the U.S., even when they were deemed politically incorrect by its leading Cold Warriors. Currents of accommodationism (some would say appeasement) were always an element in European politics, which had suffered through so many exhausting wars.The central principle of the alliance articulated in Article 5 of its charter is that an attack on one is an attack on all, but there have long been doubts about what might happen if a member acted provocatively and without consultation—especially if that member was the United States.Nixon's NATO problem in 1974 grew out of his support for Israel during its 1973 war with Egypt and Syria, and his bellicose confrontation of the Soviets to keep them from coming to the aid of their Arab allies. The rest of America's NATO partners were terrified they'd be dragged into that fight. Then, a month after Nixon's trip, NATO members Greece and Turkey rushed to the brink of war over the fate of Cyprus, the north part of which is occupied by Ankara to this day.But the most fundamental challenge to NATO's raison d'être came 30 years ago with the fall of the Berlin Wall, the liberation of Moscow's Eastern European "satellites," the unification of Germany—and in 1991 the disintegration of the Soviet Union itself.Now the Americans were still in NATO, but tired of spending so much on it, the Russians no longer seemed like much of a threat, and the Germans, while they might not move to become a big military power, were once again big, rich, powerful—their territory stretching across the middle of Europe—and clearly in no mood to be kept down.Without the Cold War, what was the point of NATO?The answer through the '90s was to turn what had been primarily a defensive, deterrent military organization into an expanding political one that, along with the growing European Union, would draw the old Soviet satellites and even parts of the old USSR and Russian empire into the Western European orbit of modern democracies.Many in Russia, particularly old KGB hands like one Vladimir Putin, saw this as a direct threat to Moscow's power and influence, and felt humiliated.President Bill Clinton put forth the idea that Poland should be brought into NATO, starting an irreversible process of expansion that has taken the organization from 12 members to 29. In 1999, after the wars in ex-Yugoslavia had raged for most of the decade, NATO intervened in the Balkans to defend the people of Kosovo. In September 2001, when the United States was attacked by Afghanistan-based al Qaeda, Article 5 was invoked and NATO, intended as a very European alliance, went to war halfway around the world.By then, Putin was president of Russia, and from his perspective, NATO was closing in. The little Baltic states Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia were made members in 2004, and given the same guarantees of mutual defense as all the others. In 2008, when Hillary Clinton was a presidential candidate, she said Ukraine and Georgia—which also were former Soviet republics—should be brought into the alliance.In 2003, NATO wanted nothing to do with the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. In 2011, the Obama administration backed a French and British-led intervention in Libya that resulted in the overthrow of dictator Muammar Gaddafi—and bloody chaos that continues to this day.As British journalist Geoffrey Wheatcroft wrote, "If Americans complain about having to pay most of the cost of the alliance, Europeans could reply that that's only fair if NATO is going to be little more than the American Foreign Legion." (Trump on Tuesday was talking about a global role for NATO. Make of that what you will.)By Putin's second term, his pushback against what he saw as NATO's encroachment became increasingly aggressive. Russia had carved off parts of Georgia early on, in the '90s, and Putin went to war with Tbilisi in 2008 to defend them. He might easily have rolled into the capital. When a revolution in Ukraine overthrew a pro-Moscow government in favor of a more Western Europe-oriented regime in 2014, Putin seized the Crimean Peninsula and supported a separatist war in Ukraine's east, known as Donbas, which continues to this day.A new Cold War began and now the moment would seem right to revive the "keep the Russians out" part of the old formula. But Trump, as noted, has made the the "keep the Americans in" part an open question, while Germany has become increasingly dependent on Russian natural gas to fuel its powerful economy. Macron, too, makes the point that it was easy to define the Soviet Union as the enemy, but Russia is more complicated–an adversary in some areas, a partner in others.And then there is Turkey, which has the second biggest military in NATO after the United States.Given its ambiguous posture in the war against the so-called Islamic State in neighboring Syria and Iraq, where for years it did not lift a finger, and its increasingly cozy relations with Moscow, including the deployment of an advanced anti-aircraft missile system incompatible with NATO's arms and logistics, one might be tempted to ask whose side Ankara is really on.The situation was made much worse in October, when Trump gave Turkey the green light to invade northern Syria and kill or displace the Kurdish forces that have been vital to the U.S.—and French—and other coalition efforts to crush ISIS. Alongside the Turkish troops, and supported by Ankara, are jihadis who are themselves hard to distinguish from ISIS fighters and in some cases are every bit as savage. But Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan tried to insist NATO endorse his view that the real terrorists are the anti-ISIS Kurds. The other members refused.Under the circumstances—and Macron comes close to saying this as he demands strategic "clarification"—the question can become not who needs NATO, but who needs Turkey?The great irony is that militarily, partly because of Trump's incitement and demands that members build up their own defenses, NATO probably is stronger than ever, and potentially a better bulwark against overt Russian aggression than it was in the Obama years. "I would still say NATO's doing a pretty good job of preventing the big threat, the worst-case scenario, and that's reason enough to keep it," says Michael O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institute.But what does it stand for? "NATO still represents more than half of all world military spending, and collectively about 40 percent of world GDP," O'Hanlon told The Daily Beast in a conference call. "I like the fact that we're unified with countries that have similar values, and democratic traditions, and also some shared history, which hasn't always been pretty when we've not been unified, and when we fought each other."O'Hanlon said he "would much prefer having a weak, divided NATO to uncertainty about who's with whom in the European security order."Perhaps, but with Trump and Erdogan as major players—and the added wild card of Trump's reaction to impeachment—that uncertainty is only likely to grow.Trump said at the end of the meeting that he was headed straight home, canceling a planned press conference. "I think we've done plenty of news conferences," he said. Tweets, no doubt, will be coming soon.Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
|
| N.Korea's army chief disappointed by Trump comments, warns against force: KCNA Posted: 04 Dec 2019 05:17 AM PST ![N.Korea's army chief disappointed by Trump comments, warns against force: KCNA]( "N.Korea's army chief disappointed by Trump comments, warns against force: KCNA") North Korea's army chief said he was disappointed by U.S. President Donald Trump's suggestion of using military force against Pyongyang, and warned that any strike would meet a quick response, state media reported on Wednesday. Pak Jong Chon, chief of the General Staff of the Korean People's Army, said North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un was also "displeased" by Donald Trump's comments at a NATO summit in Britain, according to KCNA.
|
| Exclusive: Deutsche Telekom freezes 5G deals pending Huawei ban decision Posted: 04 Dec 2019 04:48 AM PST  Deutsche Telekom has put all deals to buy 5G network equipment on hold, it said on Wednesday, as it awaits the resolution of a debate in Germany over whether to bar Chinese vendor Huawei on security grounds. Europe's largest telco finds itself in a tight spot after senior lawmakers in Chancellor Angela Merkel's coalition rebelled and called for a ban on Huawei, which is a key vendor for its existing mobile networks in Germany and Europe. At the same time in the United States, a $26 billion deal for Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile unit to merge with Sprint hangs in the balance.
|
| UN urges Tanzania: Stop barring cases at human rights court Posted: 04 Dec 2019 04:27 AM PST ![UN urges Tanzania: Stop barring cases at human rights court]( "UN urges Tanzania: Stop barring cases at human rights court") The United Nations human rights office is urging Tanzania to reconsider its decision barring individuals and non-governmental groups from filing cases against it at the African Court on Human and People's Rights. Critics call this the latest act of repression by Tanzanian President John Magufuli's administration. Amnesty International says the decision "will rob people and organizations in Tanzania a vital avenue to justice" in a country with a deeply flawed justice system.
|
| Germany expels Russian diplomats in probe of Berlin killing Posted: 04 Dec 2019 04:26 AM PST  Germany expelled two Russian diplomats Wednesday over the brazen killing of a Georgian on the streets of Berlin in August as prosecutors said evidence suggested the slaying was ordered either by Moscow or authorities in Russia's republic of Chechnya. The allegation by Germany's federal prosecutor's office was the latest from a Western European nation accusing Russia of an attack on its soil, after Britain last year blamed Moscow for an attempt to poison a former Russian spy in the English city of Salisbury.
|
0 条评论:
发表评论
订阅 博文评论 [Atom]
<< 主页